RICH WOMAN DEFRAUDED

Greymouth Evening Star, 25 August 1928, Page 8

RICH WOMAN DEFRAUDED

EX-WAITER’S SWINDLES. A remarkable story of the influence wielded over women by a crippled exwaiter, who, born in a village, afterward posed as “Count Eustace of Boulonge,” was told at the Old Bailey, London, last‘month, when Henry Anderson Conroy Irving Eustace, aged 22, who was charged with forging and uttering a telegram with intent to defraud and attempting to obtain sums of £6OOO and £B44'from Mrs Al. B. Stirling, a rich widow whom he met at an hotel, was sentenced to 22 months’ imprisonment with hard labour.

It was revealed that in five years Eustace had victimised women to the extent of over £30,000. In the charge before the Court, it was alleged that, posing as a wealthy man, he induced Mrs Stirling to give him four blank cheques which she had signed. He filled in two of them, it was alleged, one for £6OOO and one for £844, and sent a telegram to Airs Stirling’s bank in Doncaster, in her name, asking for the cheques to beMionoured. Cross-examined by Mr Percival Clarke, Eustace said Mrs Stirling expressed her willingness to meet cheques so long as they did not exceed £lO,OOO. She knew £6OOO was to be paid to satisfy a judgment against him and save him from imprisonment. She was to be repaid.

The car for which the cheque for £844 was made out was for Mrs Stirling.

“I may be too old for it to be of any service to me,” commented Mr. Clarke, “but will you tell me wherein lies your fatal fascination?” Eustace: I really could not tell you. I do not think there is such a thing. Mr Clarke said Eustace was the son of a woman in a Cornish village. Ho was first a house-boy and then a waiter. In 1922 he was bound over for stealing from a house where he was lodging. He then went to Sidmouth as a waiter, and met with a motor-cycle accident which necessitated his going into hospital. There he met tln»e benevolent elderly ladies, who sympathised with him, he imposed to the tune of ;£ 10,000. Aliss Cornish was afterward plaintiff in an action which resulted in judgment being obtained against Eustace. Failure to pay rendered him liable to bo sent to prison for contempt of Court, because it was thought that he had a large sum of money at his disposal. His banking account showed £18,670 passing through it in about six weeks. This included two cheques for £7OOO and £10,500 drawn by Airs Lindsay White, a charming benevolent widow who had family associations for years in Ceylon. Mrs White parts with £19,500.

Eustace met Mrs White in the Royal Palace Hotel, Kensington. He told her he was Count Eustace of Boulogne, that he had an old castle near Land’s End, and that he was grandson of a. well-known man in Ceylon. He said that he was temporarily financially embarrassed, but that he could offer ample security, as he owned a house in Grosvenor Square, let to the Japanese Embassy. As a result he got from Mrs White without any security in. less than three weeks a sum of £19,500. The Common Sergeant, Sir Henry Dickens, K.C.: That should be a warning to wealthy ladies never to live alone in London hotels, especially if they are benevolent. (Laughter). An action was brought in respect of this matter, Air Clarke proceeded, and judgment obtained against Eustace. The result was that his Rolls Royce car was commandeered, and all that could be obtained from him was obtained. Ho was still in the position of having to go to prison unless he satisfied the other judgment, and it was to avoid that inconvenience that he told Airs Stirling a pack of lies and endeavoured to get nearly £7OOO from her.

Detective-Sergeant Thomas said Eustace received a council school education in the village where he was born. He added that Eustace met a Mrs Heath in an hotel at Teigninouth in February 1927, told her a wonderful story about, his wealth, and got about. £l5OO from her. About this time he bought a motor garage at Walton-on-Thames, living in an hotel with a valet, a chauffeur and a. motor-car. Tired of this, he went Io a. London hotel, where he met Mrs Lindsay White.

“You are a thoroughly plausible young rogue,” said the Common Sergeant, passing sentence. “You are a practical swindler and a danger to society. Your exhibition in the wit-ness-box shows also that you are a blatant young liar.”