AMAZING BANK CLERK

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 17, 20 January 1940, Page 3 (Supplement)

AMAZING BANK CLERK

TT was the Liverpool bank fraud trial that saw the first important appearance in London of a young barrister who had made a name for himself in the North— F. E. Smith. Little did wc who heard him plead at the Old Bailey realise that we were listening to a genius. And it was hardly our fault, as either through nervousness or because he was fighting for a man who had pleaded guilty lie was by no moans impressive. The way in which lie kept saying "My Lord" instead of "M'Lud" * fell strangely on the ear and drew from the old legal hands, with whom T was sitting. whispered comments—and not contra t ulatory coinments. We lived, however, to see this F. E. Smith become Lord Birkenhead, Lord Chancellor of England, a man who in a comparatively short life made legal history. Thomas Goudie, whom "F.E." was defending, had been a young clerk in the Bank of Liverpool. He was a well-brought-up, simple fellow, who lived contentedly on his £3 a week salary, until lie suddenly became interested in racing and started to bet. At first he was lucky and in one week actually won nearly £SOO. But the inevitable happened. His winnirgs melted, and one settling day he found himself owing the bookmakers .€IOO. Fearful of losing his position if the bank found he had been backing horses, he forged a cheque for this amount on the account of one of the bank's clients, Mr. Hudson, the soap magnate. His plan was simple and safe and succeeded so well that in less than five weeks he had managed to draw from this one account no less than £109,500. He drew cheques in favour of a hypothetical man named Scott and endorsed them in that name. When the cheques came to the bank for payment, a clerk in the clearing house entered them, as was customary, in a journal and then handed them, together with the journal, to Goudie, to be checked in the latters ledger. Goudie. however, neither entered the cheques in Mr. Hudson's account nor in the ledger. He ticked them oIT in his colleague's journal, however, as if he had compared them with his ledger. Instead of filing the cheques ho tore them up. His further cheque forgeries after his initial £100 "success" were carried out in an attempt to recoup himself on the turf, and it was while attending race meetings he fell in with two scoundrels, William Styles and Thomas Kelly, who decided Goudie was a pigeon worth while plucking. By inducing him to back "certainties" (which always lost) they succeeded in less than a fortnight in making him draw more than £79,250. Hearing of the success of Styles and Kelly, three other members of the underworld —Marks, a London bookmaker, an American confidence man who used the alias of Mances, and Dick Burgc, the famous pugilist—decided to help themselves.

One of tliera went to Liverpool, and >=o frightened the life out of Goud'c by threatening him with immediate exposure at the bank, that in a very short while he had forged further cheques imounting to an additional £90,250. Of this sum Marks had £15,000, Burge £38,500, and Mances nearly £36,750. At last a bank official became susncioiis, and the crash came. Gcudie ■vas arrested, but turned King's Evidence. Mances and Marks fled to the Continent, and Kelly, Styles and Burge were caught in London. Marks notified Scotland Yard that he would return to surrender himself, but committed suicide by jumping off the cross-Channel boat that was bringing him home.

By--Sir Seymour Hicks

Who has attended all the most famous Old Bailey trials for 50 years. Sir Seymour is now chief organiser of entertainment for the British troops. On the last day of the trial, Marshall Hall, who was defending Styles, fell foul of the judge, Lord Mersey, then Mr. Justice Bigham. At one point Marshall Hall said to the judge: "I do not think your Lordship heard me yesterday; in fact, I do not think you wished to hear me." The judge at once told Marshall Hall not to be oll'ensive. When Marshall Hall said this was not his intention, the judge replic'l: '*1 don't believe you, Mr. Marshall Hall.*' It was a very tense moment, and everyone felt extremely uncomfortable. However, the matter was patched up. The judge accepted an apology, and afterwards, I believe, was one of Marshall Hall's greatest friends. Styled and Kelly were each sentenced to two years' hard labour, the maximum sentence 011 the count of conspiracy. They were lucky enough to find the prosecution willing to accept in their cases pleas of guilty on this count. Burgc was sentenced on four counts to a total of ton years' penal servitude and two years' hard labour, the judge specifying that the hard labour should run concurrently with two years of the penal servitude. Xot understanding the meaning of the word "concurrently," he threw up his hands in despair and cried, "Oh! my lord, twelve years."

Ho "was the only prisoner I ever saw completely break down. No one who saw Goudie in the dock could have had anything but pity for him. He was a weak-minded specimen humanity and looked a miserable object—a rabbit sitting placidly next to the ferrets who had bled him to death. Out of the huge sums he had stolen it was estimated that he himself had had only a matter of just over £4200. He died in prison after serving five years of the ten years' penal servitude to which he had "ben sentenced. The money recovered from the prisoners amounted to just on £100,000, so that the bank lost only just under £70,000. Burse received £38,000 disgorged £20,496 Man ties » £36.7.10 " £34.000 Marks £1.1.000 " £12,041 " £30,6.-,0 " £17,000 r* v .. £ar, '-" ;i2 " £6,r»7-t Goudie » £1,268 " £457 £1G0,300 £00,5GS Some time after the trial I met Lord Mersey at a supper party, and we talked about the. case. After holding forth for a few minutes about it lie added with a whimsical smile, "I don't think I behaved very well that day." Without meaning in the least to be disrespectful, I answered, "No, I don't think you did." In a moment he. turned and flashed at me: "What do you mean by that?" I was completely knocked ofT my balance, and as there was no way out of it, I said: "Well, you may not remember it, but when Marshall Hall asked you before you sentenced the prisoners whether if a large sum of money were returned by them this fact would be taken into consideration in arriving at the sentences, you said 'All!' ''Marshall Hall and, indeed, the whole Court, gathered from the way you inflected the word 'ah' that this would be so, and despite the money being refunded you gave them nearly the maximum sentence. There was a pause and I expected to be chastised heavily for my temerity, but all Lord Mersey said was, "Yes— ah! yes. Did I do that!" I felt pure lie knew he did.