SWINDLER IN MASQUERADE

Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 196, 16 May 1936, Page 24

SWINDLER IN MASQUERADE

Bogus Parson’s Frauds

.Strange stories concerning ‘•charitable organisations” run by a man who had masqueraded both as a clergyman and a “captain” were related by a police-superintendent at Derby Assizes when Charles Bralee, 41, clerk, belonging to Birmingham, pleaded guilty to forging a receipt for £l4 and uttering the same with intent to defraud.

Prosecuting. Mr. T. N. Winning, explained that Bralee, wearing a clerical collar, called at the offices of a typewriting company in Leeds and represented himself as the Rev. Charles Bralee. B.A. He was connected, he said, with a charity organisation at Chaddesden, and wanted a new typewriter, on the hire-purchase system, less an allowance for the old one which lie had with him. His statements were accepted as genuine, and he was allowed to have a typewriter worth £l7/10/-, less £4 allowed for the old machine. Bralee signed the usual hire-pur-chase form in the name of the Rev. Charles Bralee, and after he left the offices with the machine nothing further was heard of him nor were any payments made. He pawned the new typewriter in Derby/ and, to prove to the pawnbroker that it was his property, he produced a hire-purchase card showing that all the instalments had been paid and bearing the forged signature of a'manager. Superintendent Ridd, of Chesterfield, told the Court that Bralee, who war originally a shop -assistant, ran, in the name of “Captain” Bralee, a char-

liable fund in Birmingham, and lie had visited various towns in the country in connection with similar organisations.

He had represented himself as a B.A. of Durham University, and at times had worn clerical clothing and had posed as the superintendent of a children’s mission in Sheffield and Glasgow. Bralee. he continued, had no right to describe himself either as the “Rev.” Mr. Bralee or “Captain” Bralee. lie had tried to make expenses balance the collections be received for charity, and in one instance the expenses came to 75 per cent, of the receipts. Summing up Bralee’s character, the superintendent characterised him as “an impudent hypocrite and public nuisance.”

He had helped to keep his own children out of some of the collections he made, but on several occasions he had deserted his wife and family, and after leaving them in the lurch had associated with other women. At Derby last year he received a sentence of one month’s imprisonment for false pretences in connection with a “Children’s Friendly Society.” Passing sentence of two months’ imprisonment with hard labour, the judge observed that he was not punishing Bralee for anything connected with his charitable organisations, for there was no such charge before him. Bralee interrupted the judge by declaring that he had acted under the stress of poverty, and if clemency were shown him he would never see the inside of a court again.