POSE AS DETECTIVE

Greymouth Evening Star, 2 October 1933, Page 3

POSE AS DETECTIVE

£lO FINE FOR MASQUERADE LONDON, August 16. Robert Westover Christain, 27, described as a London office manager, of Maida-vale, was fined £lO at Ryde, Isle of Wight, yesterday for impersonating a Metropolitan police officer. Mrs Grace Maynard, owner of the Monteagle Hotel, Shanklin, said after a £2OO burglary there Christian who was staying at the hotel, produced a card inscribed: “Westover Christian, Commissioner General, New Scotland Yard.” He asked several questions about the theft, and said he suspected an employee. He took some documents from the employee’s room. Later when he proposed arresting the employee she became suspicious, and communicated with the police. Superintendent Morrison said Christian told him he was in the political department at Scotland Yard. When told that Scotland Yard had been communicated with, and no person of his name was connected with it, Christian said he had the cards printed, but did not intend to use them criminally. Christian pleaded guilty. He said he told a friend at Shanklin that he was in the police, and had the cards printed when he went to Shanklin last week-end. When his friends told him of the robbery he was led into doing what he did “just to make a show.”