COUNTERFEIT COINS

Evening Star, Issue 21091, 2 May 1932, Page 9

COUNTERFEIT COINS

"TAKEN AS CURIOSITIES" STORY OF FOUR HALF-CROWNS TWELVE MONTHS IN- PRISON. That two men, one a moulder, undergoing terms of imprisonment in Hull prison, found opportunities while in gaol to experiment in the making _ of couterfeit half-crowns, was the startling assertion made at York Assizes by Leslie Austin Duce, aged 21, unemployed seaman, of Hull, who, found guilty of being in possession of spurious coins, and also of makingthem, was sentenced to twelve months’ imprisonment. Duce, who denied the charge, told a remarkable story of how he came to have four bad half-crowns in his possession. He said he shared lodgings in Hull with a man named Brown, -.nd cne day Brown was visited by a friend named White, who had been in prison. Duce stated that he saw Brown and White subsequently make spurious halfcrowns. “ They made them quickly,” he declared, adding, “ I suppose Brown made dozens of thepi.” The four half-crowns found by the police in his possession, Duce averred, were taken away by him as curiosities. Although he had watched Brown and White making counterfeits he had nothing to do with the business himself. The case for the prosecution, as outlined by Mr Clive Salter, was that on January 11 Duce met a man named George Henry Forsyth. Taking from his pocket two counterfeit half-crowns, he said to Forsyth: “ That is how you want to make them, I make them from the tops of soda-water siphons, and I am going to put brass into them to make them ring.” Due© suggested to Forsyth that he should have some of the coins, and that they should go “ fifty-fifty.” Forsyth informed the police of this conversation, and Duce was arrested shortly afterwards. When he was searched, four base coins were found on him, and, when asked who made them, replied: “ I would rather not say. The chap who made them is known to you, and has done time before, and it would mean penal servitude next time.” A visit by detectives to the room in which Duce lived led to the finding of a saucepan containing molten lead and tho glass portion of a soda-water siphon. Shown these things at the police station, Duce declared that he knew nothing about them.

A police inspector, in cross-examina-tion, stated that he knew a man named White, who was in prison for coining. Passing sentence as stated, Mr Justice Humphreys remarked that, apart from the actual offence l of coining, it was detestable how coiners defrauded people like small shop-keepers, who could ill-afford to lose the money.