POSED AS TRAVELLER.

Auckland Star, Volume LXII, Issue 5, 7 January 1931, Page 3

POSED AS TRAVELLER.

YOUNG MAN BEFORE COURT,

A SERIES OF OFFENCES

VALUELESS CHEQUES ISSUED.

(By Telegraph.—Own Correspondent.) HAMILTON, this Say. A young man, Sydney John Badams, who a few days ago was sentenced at Auckland to imprisonment for fraud, to-day pleaded guilty to four charges of obtaining money on credit by fraud. The charges related, to offences at Te Aroha, Okoroire, and Eotorua. A charge of theft of clothing from Te Aroha was also preferred against accused. Detective-Sergeant Thompson said the accused's modus opera ndi was to pose as a traveller for a certain vacuum cleaner. He would stay at. hotels and would incur credit. In two cases he presented valueless cheques for more than the amount of his board. He received the balance in cash, thus defrauding the National Hotel, of Cambridge, of -£12; Mary Kensington, boardinghouse keeper, of Te Aroha, of £12; N. L. Higginson, of the Okoroire Hotel, of £2; R. D. Griffiths, of Rotorua, of £8 14/. In addition to the other counts, the accused was charged with stealing a pair of trousere, a pair of shoes, a blazer, and a belt, the property of Noel V. Callagher, of Te Aroha; and with unlawfully converting a car valued at £250, the property of J. D. Donner, of Rotorua. The accused pleaded guilty to all charges. On the two charges of forgery he was committed for sentence. With regard to the conversion of the car, Detective-Sergeant Thomson said that, while staying at a boardinghouse in Rotorua, the accused became friendly with a man named Donner, and borrowed his car to go to a dance. He then drove the car to Tauranga, and had'the vehicle in his possession when arrested. On each of the two charges of obtaining credit by fraud, and on the charge of theft, the accused was sentenced to a month's imprisonment. On the conversion charge he was sentenced to two months' imprisonment." The sentences are to be concurrent.