SAND FOR COPPER WIRE

Evening Star, Issue 21787, 1 August 1934, Page 12

SAND FOR COPPER WIRE

FRAUD ALLEGED (T’ee United Press Association.l WELLINGTON, July 31. Charged with conspiracy by deceit to defraud Brown and Dnreau Ltd., Wellington, of £69 12s 7d; and, further, with intent to defraud by falsely representing that certain drums, contained copper wire, valued at £69 12s 7d, John Baton Hardy, aged thirty, a compositor, and John Augustus Jeanes, aged twenty-nine, a butcher, appeared before the Chief Justice (Sir Michael Myers) and a jury in the Supreme Court to-day. Both pleaded not guilty. The Crown Prosecutor (Mr P. S. K. Macassey), outlining the case for the Crown, said it was alleged that another man who, it ivas understood, was called Davis, but could not be traced by the police, bad assisted the two accused to carry out the fraud. On January S Davis went to the manager of Brown and Dnreau Ltd. (Mr W. H. Hindle) and asked if he wanted to buy any copper wire. Davis arranged to sell some at 23d a lb. On the morning of January 9 the two accused arranged for a carrier to purchase eighty empty drums. The drums were filled with sand, and Hardy instructed the carrier to have the load weighed in the name of Davis. Davis had been told to leave the drums at Barton Gingers, and when Mr'Hindle went along to inspect them his suspicion was aroused by the weight of the drums. He found there was sand in them. “ Jeanes and Hardy kept very much in the background in this,” said Air Macassey. The evidence Mas not completed when the court adjourned until to-morrow.