SWINDLER OF SIXTY

Greymouth Evening Star, 9 October 1926, Page 8

SWINDLER OF SIXTY

WOMAN’S AMAZING CAREER.

Frail, white-haired and benevolentlooking, a woman of 60, whose nefarious schemes had brought her into the dock, created great astonishment when her amazing career \of iraud was revealed at the Bristol Quarter Sessions recently. Confronted with a series of charges of obtaining money from various persons by false pretences and with obtaining credit without disclosing the fact that she was an undischarged bankrupt, this elderly woman, Elizabeth Margaret Grant Greer otherwise Bessie Field, described as a confectioner, pleaded guilty, and was sentenced, to 15 months’ imprisonment with hard labour. The prisoner’s get-rich-quick operations were disclosed by Mr E. H. C. Wethered, who related that at Leicester, where she was adjudged bankrupt, the deficiency was about £6OOO, but she was made bankrupt before that in London, when there was a deficiency of £5OOO. Similar transactions to that with which she was charged in Bristol had been carried on before in other places. In Newcastle she was wanted in connection with the Rapid Returns Company, which she carried on there during 1911-13. When she absconded from Bristol she | went to Hull, where she started as a I high-class costumier, and where she I incurred liabilities of over £2700. I There was a warrant outstanding at I Hull for her. From there she went I to Blackpool, where she traded as a I baker and confectioner. She was there arrested.

There was also complaint from Glasgow of offences committed there by the prisoner in 1924. Between 1910 and 1926 she had obtained credit to the tune of £30,000, the greater part of which had never been repaid. She took important business premises m a leading thoroughfare and gave people the impression that she was a person of substance, so that they allowed her to have credit. Something of the prisoner’s history was given by Detective-Superintendent Tanner, who stated that she was believed to be a single woman bom at Southport in 1866, but she declined to give any information respecting her antecedents. “On April 12, 1910,’* I continued Superintendent Tanner, I “she was adjudged bankrupt, her liabilities being £5335. From December, 1911, until February, 1923, she traded at Newcastle-on-Tyne at the Rapid Returns Company. In February, 1913, she left Newcastle, and many people sought her for money. In 1915 sb was living with her mother at Sunnymede, Quorn, Leicestershire, as Bessie Greer. She was the tenant of the house, which she furnished elaborately, mostly on credit. She became interested in a business known as the Medical Carbon Company, but was soon in financial difficulties, and an execution for £226 and a home furnisher’s account was levied upon her goods at Quorn. “The accused absconded from Quorn on May 16, 1916, and was adjudicated bankrupt a month later. Her liabilities were £7169, and a dividend of JOod in the £ was paid. From August

to November, 1916, as Ada Scott, she was employed by a London firm of advertising specialists, as a house-to-house canvasser. From 1916 until early in 1918 she was employed by another firm, as advertising superintendent, and from early in 1918 until the end of the war, as Mollie Walton, she was employed as manageress of the Crowndale Splinterless Glass Works, Camden Town. “In the early part of 1920, as Mary Walton, accused was managing director of the Kent Toy Company, Maidstone. This business was carried on for about eight months, employing about 30 to 40 girls and several exservice disabled men, who were paid weekly from a bank overdraft on money-lenders’ chits. During tms period accused obtained by fraudulent means large sums of money from local men, who, however, took no action. At this,time she leased a vicarage at Burnham, near Maidstone, and furnished it on the hire-purchase system, and had electric light installed in the village church, but did not pay for it. Later, she sold rhe furniture she had obtained on hire, and, with her

mother, absconded. , “The sheriff took possession of the works of the Kent Toy Company, and the Official Receiver adjudged the company bankrupt, and the place was sold up. In January, 1925, as Bessie Field, accused obtained the lease ot premises in Bristol and carried on business there as a cooked meat specialist until May 16, when she absconded. Later, she was adjudged bankrupt in Bristol. Her liabilities were £3OOO, and a dividend of in the £ was paid. In every place sue has been, at least since 1910, she has been accompanied and assisted uy another woman, who had passed as her sister.’’ In passing sentence, the Recorder, Mr Holman Gregory, K.C., observed that in the ordinary coui-se, as she had never been previously convicted, he might, if the prisoner had been u young woman, have dealt with her in away which he hoped would have encouraged her to reform, but she was 60, and an educated woman of aln who had had the opportunity of leaning an honest life. The offence of obtaining money on credit was quite apart from the others, which, showed cruel and heartless fraud. If a person could be guilty of such fraud, and, ! succeeding in one place, went on from town to town, that person-must be punished. “In order to obtain moDoy to enter upon rash speculations,” went on 'the Recorder, “she had induced poor working girls to part with perhaps the last penny they had in the world.”