FALSE CHEQUES

Waikato Times, Volume 127, Issue 29241, 11 October 1940, Page 4

FALSE CHEQUES

AGENT FOR SENTENCE SECURED MONEY FROM WOMAN Pleading guilty to a number o i / charges of false pretences, John Hartland Pierson, aged 30, agent and canvasser, of no fixed abode, was committed for sentence to the Supreme Court at Auckland when he appeared before Messrs G. K. Sinclair and W. Bourne, J’s.P., in the Magistrate’s Court, Hamilton, today. The prosecution was conducted by Detective J. Hayes. The charges were as follows: That on September 10 at Hamilton he obtained £ls from M. A. Bell by a valueless cheque; that on September 14 at Hamilton he obtained £2 19s 6d from W. J. Fellingham by a valueless cheque; that on September 16 at Cambridge he obtained £5 11s 6d from J. S. Hanna by a false cheque; that on September 18 at Tauranga he I obtained £5 from N. N. P. Green by i a false cheque; and that on September 22 at Waihi he obtained £4 19s 6d from L. Lee by false cheque. On a charge of obtaining credit by fraud from H. Rawson at Taumarunui on I August 13 Pierson was remanded to appear at Taumarunui on October 15. Story of Legacy ! Mrs ‘Annie Isobel Chaplin, a cook iat a timber mill at Erua. said that | while Pierson was working at the mill he boarded at her house. At , the beginning of August he told her ! that his father had left him a legacy j of £320, and he suggested going to i Wellington in connection with it. He 1 ! asked her to finance the trip, saying ; j that he would pay her back out of the • | legacy. She drew £3O from her savings bank account, and gave it to ■ him. Later he said he had to go to Auckland to see about the legacy ' and she drew another £3O for him. He assured her that she would get her money when he received the legacy. On August 16 he again wanted to go to Auckland and again she drew £3O for him. On August , 19 she gave him another £4O. In reply to a question from him she said she had a few shillings in the . bank and a cheque book. He later said he had received £2OO, which he had deposited to her account in the l bank. She believed him. At his in- ’ stigation she later wrote a number of cheques at intervals and in dif- . ferent places, not knowing that there ■ were no funds in the bank to meet them. r Five statements by accused, in which he admitted the offences, were produced by Detective Hayes. Accused said he knew there were no funds to meet the cheques, as he had not deposited £2OO in the bank.