SERIES OF CHARGES

Evening Post, Volume CXXX, Issue 26, 30 July 1940, Page 4

SERIES OF CHARGES

PROBATION FOR YOUTH

AN AUDACIOUS SCHEME

(By Telegraph—Press Association.)

NEW PLYMOUTH, July 29,

Dictating letters to his "secretary" in the lounge of a New Plymouth hotel where he obtained credit for board and lodging by fraud to the value of £9 6s 9d and dictating further letters in a hairdressing saloon while having a permanent wave in his hair, were some of the devices of Neil Oliver Moore, a youth of not quite 19, in an endeavour to create an atmosphere about himself of munificence and wealth as part ol a process of publishing a booklet en- ■■ titled "Our New Zealand," the proceeds of which were to go to "the soldiers' benefit league." The typewriter used by the secretary was obtained, together with some stationery, from a local firm on credit, and the machine was sold the same day to a second-hand dealer for £2 10s. The scheme miscarried and the result was the appearance of the accused this morning on remand before Mr. W. H. Woodward, S.M., on a series of charges on which he was admitted to probation for two years and three months until he reaches the age of 21. He was also ordered to make restitution of £15 5s 9d. The charges involved were idle and disorderly, no lawful means of support, stealing a typewriter, obtaining credit for board and lodging by fraud, unlawfully raising money for patriotic purposes, and incurring other debts by fraud. The accused pleaded guilty to all the charges. The police said that he engaged a young girl as his secretary and also men to canvass for advertisements. His staff was obtained through .the Placement Officer. He stayed at a hotel under the name of Van Ashe and he had been known in Palmerston North by the name of de Castro.