MONEY OBTAINED BY FRAUD

Press, Volume LXXIX, Issue 23942, 8 May 1943, Page 2

MONEY OBTAINED BY FRAUD

ACCUSED SENT TO PRISON (P.A.) AUCKLAND, May 6. Described by the police as a plausible and impudent fraud, Thomas Hepry Carstairs, a painter and rigger, aged 45, pleaded guilty in the Magistrate’s Court to-day to seven charges involving theft, obtaining money by false pretences, and being a rogue and a vagabond who imposed on people. The total sum involved was £54, and a further charge was brought of incurring a debt e£ £l4 with a taxidriver by fraud. The offences wene committed in various towns in the North Island, and the police said that in most cases Carstairs obtained the money by telling persons he was a seafaring man who had been on wrecked or torpedoed ships. He came to New Zealand from Canada in 1936, and had a list of previous convictions, mostly for offences of the kind in the latest charges. The Magistrate (Mr J. Morling) told Carstairs that he deserved substantial punishment, as he had been preying bn the good natiire of people, and sentenced him to six months’ imprisonment on one charge, to be • followed by 18 months' reformative detention.