VALUELESS CHEQUE FRAUDS.

Auckland Star, Volume XLIII, Issue 182, 31 July 1912, Page 4

VALUELESS CHEQUE FRAUDS.

WORKED ON A SYSTEM. BY HAWERA ACCOUNTANT. Oscar Middieton Hawson, an. accountant at Hawcra, some five or six months ago set out on a tour to obtain money by taking advantage of the average carelessness of business people in the matter of cashing cheques. His sole stock-in-trade consisted of a cheque book of the i Bank of New Zealand, Hawera, and the '■ necessary pen. Any account with the bank was considered not needful. His > system was the pimple one of writing in the cheques for various amounts, signing them, and inelucing various business people to give 'him money in return. By this means, within five or six months, between Gisborne and Auckland, he obtained, as the result of issuing nine valueless cheques, the equivalent in cash and kind of £52 10/. He starred in Auckland on 3rd April, where he obtained from a salesman in Stone Bros.' I boot shop £5 1/. The same month he > obtained £10 from John Graham, then • hotelkeeper at Pukekohe. In May he got £6 from William Paisley, of Hast-, ings, £8 from Samuel Carll, of Gisborne,' and £5 from Louis Armitage at Darga- 1 ville. Hi« operations in June resulted i in Frank T. Wilson, of Hamilton, being defrauded of £15, and Michael P. Welsh, at Tauranga, of £5. Then the guileful | manipulator of cheques became attacked by compunctions of conscience and ceased business. The qualms eventually became so troublesome that he went to the police, gave himself up, and confessed. He came before Mr. E. C. Cutten, S.M., this morning, pleaded "Guilty" to his misdeeds, and was committed to the Supreme Court for sentence. Hawson is a middle-aged man, who at one time was an instructor in the Wanganui Technical College.