THEFT AND FRAUD.

Press, Volume LXIV, Issue 19202, 7 January 1928, Page 15

THEFT AND FRAUD.

A SEAMAN'S OFFENCES,

(FSISS ISSOCUTIO* TXLBOBiH.)

HAWERA, January 6.

Before justices at the Magistrate's Court to-day, a seaman named Andrew Alexander Clark, alias High • Grant, 'alias Hugh Vernon Ponsford, pleaded guilty and was committed to the Supreme Court for sentence on charges of stealing a gramophone valued at £39, and with fraudulently obtaining a cycle-car valued at £IOO, by falsely representin 2 that the gramophone was his own property. According to the evidence, accused, using the name of Ponsford, secured the gramophone at Hawera on hire purchase in March, paying £2 10s cteposit, and instalments of 7s 6d. tie traded the gramophone as a deposit on a cycle-car at Eltham, £3O being allowed bv the dealer, and in June he traded the car-cvcle as £SO deposit on a motor-cycle priced at £95 at Auckland. The cycle was later sold to a Hawke's Bav resident, from whom it was recovered by the Auckland firm. Accused was remanded to Wellington on a further charge of fraudulently obtaining £SO from a Lower Hutt resident in July bv falsely representing himself to be'flight-lieutenant at the Sockburn Aerodrome. He admitted he was wanted by the police for offences in various parts of New Zealand.