"HUMAN CUPIDITY"

Evening Post, Volume CXX, Issue 141, 11 December 1935, Page 10

"HUMAN CUPIDITY"

CONFIDENCE TRICK

AN AUSTRALIAN VICTIM

(From "The Post's" Representative.) LONDON, November 23.

Mr. Nicholas Mutton, an Australian wheat merchant, visited England for the Jubilee Celebrations, where he met another Australian named Marshall. The two spent a good deal of time together and eventually they went to Belgium, where Mr. Mutton was introduced to a man named Gilmour. Mr. Mutton was induced to part with £25,000. Subsequently, a man calling himself Slater was arrested at Victoria Station, and had in his possession Belgian and English notes valued at £10,300. Seven of the Belgian notes bore the same numbers as notes Mr. Mutton had formerly held. Marshall and Gilmour had not been apprehended by the police, but Slater came before Judge Dodson this week at the Central Criminal Court.

Slater, Inspector Duncan said, had declined to give any particulars about himself, but from inquiries it had been found that his full name was Ernest James Slater and that he was born in Australia. According to his fingerprints he had three convictions against him in Australia for stealing and one for assault. He came to this country about the end of 1930. He had a British passport issued to him at Melbourne in April, 1930. In October, 1931, he applied for a passport in this country, when he described himself as a furrier, born in Nottingham. So far. as the police could ascertain, Slater was a single man, who had been living with a woman named Rose Slater, who was a New Zealander, and, according to her passport, a married woman.

Describing how he parted with his money, Mr. Mutton said Gilmour told them he had been successful in carrying out a deal in gas shares. He said he had used their names—Mr. Mutton and Marshall—that the deal had yielded a profit of £67,000, and that their commission was £4000 each. Marshall went to collect the money and on his return said the Stock Exchange wanted securities. The witness said he was persuaded to telephone to Australia to get £25,000 as his guarantee, Marshall saying he would get £20,000 from a barrister friend at Cannes. The witness changed his £25,000 into Belgian francs. Later, Marshall said he had invested the whole of the money in gas shares, including the £67,000 profit on the alleged previous deal, and they had "lost every bean; they did not have a cent left:"

QUEBEC TO SCOTLAND YARD,

The witness, continuing, said that on the instruction of Gilmour, he went to Paris, thence to Cherbourg, where he embarked on a liner for Canada. When the vessel was three days put at sea he realised that he had been "taken down." On landing at Quebec he found a cablegram from Gilmour saying everything was "0.X." and telling him to go on to Vancouver and meet him there. He did not do, so, but returned to England and went to Scotland Yard.

In answer to the Judge, Slater said he got the money found on him at the races at Ostend and at the Casino. Slater was questioned as to the contents of a suitcase deposited at Victoria Station in his name. In it were copies of a London evening newspaper, and the defendant agreed that it was his photograph in the "stop press" column, together with a story that he —an Irish farm hand —had benefited under a £400,000 will. The money had to be distributed among various charitable objects by persons of means. This had been printed in after the. issue of the newspaper.

Slater agreed that this was part of a scheme used by confidence tricksters, but declared that he never fell in with the scheme.

In passing sentence, Judge Dodson said that the. evidence left very little doubt in his mind that Slater was a member of a gang of confidence tricksters —probably an international gang —and while his part was not clearly defined, there, was no doubt that in this particular instance he was involved in it, probably from the beginning.

PRAISE FOR THE POLICE.

"You belong to a class of men who prey upon society, and the cupidity of human nature makes your task sometimes very simple. In this particular case you got hold of a good-natured man, and he was, to all intents and purposes, robbed of a large sum of money." His Lordship said he was quite satisfied that Slater had been in this business for some time, and it was useless to say very much to him. He had been playing for high stakes and he had lost. He was not going to pay any regard to Slater's Australian record. ■ "It may be," his Lordship continued, "that you are not as bad as Marshall and Gilmour, but, taking into account the offence which you admitted of making a false statement in order to procure a -passport, the least sentence I can pass is one of-three years' penal servitude." His Lordship added that on the charge of conspiracy Slater would be sentenced to two years' imprisonment, the sentences to run concurrently.

An application was made by prosecuting counsel for an order for the restitution of the money found on the prisoner on arrest. Judge Dodson granted the application,' adding: "Mr. Mutton will get back some portion of his loss. So far as I can see, he has to thank the police for his good fortune. I think this is a case where the celerity with which the police officers concerned moved in this matter deserves commendation, and it will be brought before the proper authority."