Lone – Wolf Forger

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 177, 29 July 1939, Page 8 (Supplement)

Lone - Wolf Forger

WHEN the judge sentenced an unemployed labourer to four years' penal servitude at Salisbury Assizes for forging and uttering Bank of England notes, Scotland Yard was able to write "finis" to one of the most amazing cases which the "Forgery Squad" had ever been called upon to solve. It had taken them seven years to eaten their man—seven years of relentless pursuit of a man who was so clever and so cunning that not even his own wife suspected what he was doing. His capture, in the end, was due to the introduction of one of the most modern developments in the scientific detection of crime—the use of wireless. It was also due in large measure to the keen co-operation of the Wiltshire County police with Scotland Yard, and afforded yet another instance of the benefit to be derived from a closer working relationship between the "Yard" and provincial police forces. The man who pleaded guilty at Salisbury Assizes to charges of forging and uttering Bank of England notes at Cardiff and Swindon, and also to having in his possession paper and plates which might be used to produce bank-notes, was Albert Victor Bowden, 34, an unemployed labourer, of Broad Town, near Wootton Bassett. His wife, who bad left her little home in the country at 6.30 in the morning to travel the 60 miles to the Court, determined to plead with the judge for mercy for the husband whom she had never distrusted, did not hear a word of the proceedings. She sat outeide the Court room waiting to be called, but was overlooked. Press Reporter Broke The News The news of her husband's sentence was broken to her by a reporter. Her brown eyes filled with tears, and then she broke down, sobbing bitterly. When -she had recovered her composure she was allowed to visit her husband in the cells. "It is terrible," she said to the Pressman. "The whole thing has come as a great shock to me. I never realised that my husband would get such a heavy sentence for a first offence. "I am certain he did not realise the seriousness of his crime. He has been a splendid husband to me, and a fine father to our ten-year-old son. He has never given me the slightest reason to distrust him. I shall certainly stand by him, and be waiting for him when he is released. I shall have to sell up my home and try to find a job. It's terrible, terrible," she sobbed. Mrs. Bowden said earlier that her husband was the son of a former Cardiff police officer. "He was the head groundsman of the Cardiff Lawn Tennis Club, when.l first met him," she related. "The club leased a number of courts in the grounds of Cardiff Castle owned by Lord Bute- I was employed as a domestic servant at the castle. . ~, ■ , j .., "I also used to work in the Sundry. I had to pass the tennis courts every morning on the way to the laundry, and was introduced to him by one of the older servants. After we were married he gave up that job to become a plasterer, because he thought he could earn more money, but he has had several periods of unemployment. "My husband has always been fond of painting, but I never suspected for a moment that he was forging notes. I have never seen any of the notes or had any of the money," she added. "Fortunately he never gave me one to change, because I have since learned ~ that the police shadowed me as well as him. "I never once saw him working on a note, nor did he do anything that aroused the slightest suspicion in my mind. He must have done them after T had gone to hod. He used to sit up late, but I thought lie was downstairs reading." It was Bowden's cunning in keeping his guilty knowledge to himself which enabled him to evade capture for so long. There is no criminal so difficult to catch as the man who plays a lone hand. In addition, Bowden forged and passed his notes only at long intervals. According to his own story, he conceived the idea of forging a note when, one day at Cardiff, while working with his father in a fruit business, a forged 10/ note came into their possession. "I had always been keen on drawing and painting," he told the police after his arrest. "When I saw the forged note I realised I could do a much better one." Bowden did not try at the time, but about seven years ago, when out of employment, he began painting £1 notes and passing them on bookmakers at dog races. <fe

Radio Helped Scotland Yard To I End A Setien-Year Hunt I

From an early date he came under §i suspicion, but Scotland Yard were never I able to trap him. ; It was not until he moved from Cardiff ! to Broad Town, just over a year ago that the "Yard" were able to get to grips with the problem of catching him. How they eventually succeeded reads more like an extract from detective liction than real life. Chief praise is due to the astuteness of Chief-Inspector T Thompson, head of Scotland's Yard's '•Forgery Squad," and to DetectiveSergeant Toop, of the Wiltshire police stationed at Swindon, in achieving what ' at times appeared to be the impossible. Bowden chose for his new home at Broad Town a little house with no hack door. It was in the heart of the country and three miles from the nearest phone. The police suspected that if fc e attempted to change any of his forged notes he would do so in Swindon, U g miles away. p They, therefore, had to tackle the pro- * blem of shadowing him all the way to B Swindon, a ta.sk made extremely difficult B because Bowden rode a bicycle and could fl use any one of a number of routes to §§| reach the town. f; After months of fruitless watching, ■ Chief-Inspector Thompson conceived the [ idea of using wireless to assist the police I in shadowing Bowden. Heads of the wireless department at S Scotland Yard were called in. Wireless 9 ears and experts were sent to Swindon. If A battery-operated short-wave trans- fl mitting and receiving set was installed in I" a field near Bowden's house and camou-. \ - ilaged to look like a hayrick. > " Two-way communication was thus I i established with headquarters at Swin- §§ don and with the wireless patrol-cars. \§ Every time Bowden left his home |! wireless messages were fashed from |* point to point, and his movements fol- §§ lowed until he reached Swindon. If There he was shadowed by Detective- R Sergeant Toop and other officers, and, H after many disappointments, they at If last succeeded in catching him. | : S On April 6 Bowden visited a shop in jl Swindon, bought a packet of cigarettes, f ' and tendered a forged £1 note, which p the shopkeeper changed. j The note was so perfect that it had to sf be sent to the Bank of England for §§ examination by experts before it could' S definitely be adjudged to be a forgery. m Bowden was arrested five days later If. when he returned from a visit to Wales. H On being charged he made a frank and [ full confession of his guilt. Ig The house was searched, and a com' jl plete outfit for forging bank-notes was if found. II Among other articles discovered were* n book on etchings and two copper plates. p Bowden's counsel at the Assizes stated if that Bowden had declared that he had H engraved these plates experimentally, §§ and had never used them for forging p notes. Every note he forged had beea jf traced and then painted by hand. || Confounded '■ The Judge ' 1 • B To illustrate the perfection of Bow- 1 den's work. Mr. H. Elam, for" tilie prose- . B ration, handed to the judge one of the tf forgeries and also a genuine £1 note, fl which he took from his wallet. The | • forged note was perfect except for one || slight error and the fact that it had no |J watermark. p The judge examined the two notes ' El closely and then remarked, amid laughter, If . to Mr. Elam: "You had better mark the 1 genuine one; you never know." ill Mr. Elam then initialled his own note, j saying that he would take no chances. | In answer to the judge, Mr. Elam said jl , that the .outside limit of forged notes j 1 i which had come into the possession of jl the Bank of England and bore § similarities to Bowden's work numbered 313 £1 notes and 54 10/ notes. Deputy-Chief Constable Brooks, of ' Swindon, stated that Bowden was born : at Cardiff on January 3, 1904. He started life as an errand-boy, had been a grounds- ; man for a lawn tennis club, worked for l the Great Western Railway, and had els» . been a plasterer and a labourer. Recently i he had been unemployed and had draws 30/ a week out-of-work benefit. L Mr. Lavington for the defence", urged that Bowden had forged the notes only - during^periods of unemployment. , Mr. Justice Hawke remarked that some | i of Bowden's recent forgeries were very | I good specimens, but pointed out that flie | number of notes mentioned in the indict- i x, ment was something less than 20L | * "I am not going to assume that all the g i other notes produced here were forged jg by you," said the judge to Bowden, "bnt | t I must treat you with severity." . 1 "I should have thought," added the | 3 judge, "that a person of your talents | l would have been able to make a living j apart from these nefarious methods." |