KIDNAPPING GRANDFATHER.

Auckland Star, Volume LVI, Issue 292, 10 December 1925, Page 7

KIDNAPPING GRANDFATHER.

CONSPIRACY TO DEFRAUD. TWO GRANDSONS CHARGED. LONDON, December 8. Further evidence has been heard in the case in which Thomas Williams and Oeoffrey and Charles Arden are charged with conspiracy to defraud Potfglas Arden of moneys and securities. The accused Ardens are grandsons of Douglas Arden, who is over 80 years of age. Mrs. Dorothy Short, daughter of Douglas Arden,'said her father's memory was failing rapidly. He could not remember the day's events at evening. She could not say how wealthy her father was. but she thought he had inherited £450.000 from his father. Witness' brother, who was the father of the acouiied grandsons, went to Australia after leaving Oxford and married a daughter of Sir James Martin, then Chief Justice of New South Wales. After their father's death the grandfather paid for the education of his two grandsons and allowed them £300 a year for their, keep. Since 1921 each grandson had " been allowed £4 a week. Defending counsel said the defence was that the kidnapping had been carried out for the jmrpose of forcing the appointment of a receiver to protect the interests of the grandsons. Counsel said the accused Ardens, aided by Williams, kidnapped their grandfather, aged 81 years, in a London street, nnd drove him in a tax-cab to the Cloueester Gate, whore he put his signature to eleven bills for £5000 each. Counsel, explained that there had been some discussion ns to the appointment of a receiver under tlio Lunacy Act, wliieli was done in November. Knowing this the grandsons hatched an ingenious plot by which they offered, to sell their grandfather a collection 'of pictures valued at £50,000. When lie went out under the charge of nn aged coachman they induced the latter to go to a address. While he was absent they drove off with the old man.—(A. and N.Z )