YOUNG MAN'S POSE

Evening Star, Issue 20987, 29 December 1931, Page 1

YOUNG MAN'S POSE

!' SHIP'S DOCTOR " PRETENCE TWO FREE VOYAGES. Charles John Powell, aged 21, wanted to go from England to Australia. So “borrowing ” a doctor’s name, he signed on as a ship’s doctor and went there. On the voyage he attended—successfully—to several cases; and he went back on another ship belonging to the same line. The story was told in full in a London police court, when Powell was fined £5 or £3 3s costs, or 31 days’ imprisonment, for pretending to be a doctor and surgeon contrary to the Medical ActCounsel for the Director of Public Prosecutions, said that Powell had some sort of medical training as a hospital; attendant, and he applied for a post as a doctor on a , Commonwealth and Dominion Line ship, going to Australia, giving the name of a Dr Duncan Pick, M. 8., Cli.B. The magistrate: Then he committed forgery. Counsel; Of course, it was forgery, ■- but it has been decided to proceed under the Medical Act. Powell was eventually posted to the Port Denison, counsel went on, and on the voyage to Australia he attended', to a number of patients. He returned 1 to England on another of the company’s steamers. A detective said the youth really,, came back to attend the captain of the! second ship, and the treatment he gave] was very good. He signed on the ship: at Is a month and his food. The magistrate; I would like to know, if all doctors on this line are rewarded' with Is a month for their services. The detective said that what happened was that doctors who had* taken their degrees in England were taken hack to Australia free. The magistrate told Powell that ifanything had happened to the people on board it was pretty clear that ho might have been charged with manslaughter.