8-YEAR-OLD OFFENCE

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 114, 7 February 1935, Page 4

8-YEAR-OLD OFFENCE

Arrest on Fraud Charge An offence of false pretences said to have been committed eight years ago was charged against Charles Mozart Spinley, aged 51, a cook, in the Wellington Magistrate’s Court yesterday. It was of obtaining from Hermione A. Kidson, of New Plymouth, £B/10/by means of a false cheque. Spinley is at present serving a sentence of imprisonment for other convictions, and the magistrate, Mr. E. Page, passed sentence of an extra three months. In November last the police arrested Spinley at Wairoa on a number of charges of false pretences, and he was sentenced to 18 months’ imprisonment, said Detective-Sergeant L. Revell. After his arrest they thought he might be identical with a man named Wilson, who was wanted in New Plymouth for false pretences committed there in 1927, the subject of the present charge. While in. prison iu Wellington Spinley admitted his identity.

Speaking of the New Plymouth offence Detective-Sergeant Revell said that in July, 1927, Spinley, under the name of Wilson, was staying at a boardinghouse conducted by Mrs. Kid son. He ran up an account of 30/-, paid it with a cheque drawn at the Bank of New Zealand, Te Kuiti, for £lO, and Mrs. Kidson gave him the change. “I might mention this is a particularly mean class of offence,” the detective-sergeant added. “The woman—a widow —was in poor circumstances at the time and struggling to make ends meet. Spinley is a very bad false pretences offender. There have been just on 30 charges of that nature against him in the past.” “In December of last year there were 11 charges of false pretences against accused,’’ Mr, Page stated. "I propose on this charge to sentence him to three months’ imprisonment, which must be served at the expiration of the present sentences.”