FINGER-PRINT RECORDS

Greymouth Evening Star, 25 July 1930, Page 2

FINGER-PRINT RECORDS

CAREER OF SWINDLER.

Eight sets of finger-prints, two of which were taken in foreign countries, were produced at Cardiff in the resumed prosecution of a coloured man, George Carter. Chief-Detective-Inspector Rapley, who is in charge of the finger-print department at Scotland Yard, stated in evidence that the eight sets and a further set, supplied by the Cardiff police, had been subjected to a special examination and found to be identical. Carter pleaded guilty to obtaining £35 by false pretences from Evan David Rees, a Cardiff business man, and to a similar charge at Aberystwyth. He denied, however, that he had been to prison before, and asserted that the supposed record of his crimes, as detailed by Inspector Francis, was “all lies.” Divisional-Detective-Inspector Fitzgerald, of Southampton, gave evidence that on March 22, 1919, he received into custody a man whom he was positive was prisoner, and that man was sentenced to six months’ imprisonment for being an alien and failing to report.

Asked by the clerk if he wished to question the witness, Carter remarked, “Yes, I want to ask him very many questions, and in a deep voice, too.” Prisoner, continued the inspector, when arrested in 1919, made a statement in which he gave his name as Louis Ffooedel, a French subject, born in Tangiers. At 16 he . declared he became an apprentice in a racing 'stable, and later rode horses in France and Belgium. Three months after the outbreak of war, Carter went to England, joined the Army Service Corps, was stationed at the King George Barracks, Charing Cross, and then attached to the No. 2 Remount Depot, Woolwich. He went to Havre, but was sent back to England and discharged. He had been employed, continued the statement, by Mr Rickard, horse-dealer, Marble Arch by Mr Percy Erdon, Gray’s Inn Road, ftnd in several racing stables.

A VEHEMENT DENIAL. Invited to put questions to the inspector, Carter, between sobs and (gesticulations, in a loud voice, cried: “I have a human heart inside me, and as certain as' that heart beats, so certain is it that 1 have not been in prison or ever in the hands of the police. This is my first offence, and [ want a chance to lead a different life. I cannot help my colour. I could not have been in prison all the time that man says 1 was, as 1 am only 26 years of age.” Chief-Inspector Rapley then said that Carter’s finger-prints were identical with those taken in the following prisons: Bentonville, 19.17; Preston, 1918; Mountjoy, Dublin, 1918; Wormwood Scrubs, 1919; Winchester, 1919; Bruges, Belgium, 1921; Copenhagen, 1922; Brussels, 1925. Carter stated in evidence that he was born in Calcutta in 1904, his mother being English and his father Hindu. Both his parents died when he was very young, and he was cared for by a grandmother, whose surname he did not remember. At the age of nine he was taken to Stockholm, where his grandmother died, and he was transferred to Paris by a professor of Stockholm University. Three years, said Carter, were spent by him in Paris, after which he spent four and a-half years in England. He kept a drapery shop in Oxford Circus in the name of George Carter. The Bench sentenced Carter to six months’ imprisonment with hard labour, and added that he would be recommended for deportation. “Very well. Thank you!” said Carter, as he left the dock,

Carter, who appeared in the dock immaculately dressed and well groomed, is described by the police as an international thief. Certainly, they say, there is no doubt that he has duped many people, to whom he represented himself as a member of a very wealthy family. His criminal record shows that ho was first convicted in 1912 on the Continent. He then gave the name of William Lewis. He gained a, reputation, as a. swindler. There were convictions against Carter at Nice, Paris, Montpellier, Grasse, Lille, Amsterdam, Bruges, and Brussels. He first came under the notice of the English, police, in 1916, when at West London he was sentenced for attempting to obtain money by false pretences.

Jn 1917 Carter was sentenced at Bow Street, in 1918 at Dublin and Fleetwood, and in 1919 at Southampton. In 1922 he was expelled from Denmark.