SENTENCE ON EX-COLONEL

Greymouth Evening Star, 2 June 1937, Page 14

SENTENCE ON EX-COLONEL

BOXER, BOOKMAKER, GUN-RUNN

The amazing career of a man who had been an officer in the British Army, boxer, bookmaker, and gun-run-ner, was revealed at London Sessions yesterday. According to the police he had been suspected of espionage. He was James Christie, 62, a native of Crieff, Perthshire, who was sentenced to 12 months’ imprisonment for obtaining credit by iraud. It was alleged that on two, occasions he took furnished rooms in London, and gave worthless cheques to landladies for money due for rent. It was .stated in evidence on Wednesday that during the war Christie rose to the rank of colonel, and was officer commanding the 23rd Battalion Highland Light Infantry. He was mentioned in despatches and awarded the 0.8. E. (Military Division). He was deprived of his rank and the 0.8. E. in 1925, when he was convicted in China of gun-running. After the jury’s verdict of guilty yesterday, Detective-Sergeant O’Sullivan stated that Christie was convicted at the British police-coure at Shanghai in 1925 and sentenced to three months for aiding and abetting the sale of arms. At the same court in February, 1933, he was sentenced to six months’ imprisonment on each of three counts of larceny. He was in the Royal Marines until 1905, and then went to Hong Kong, where he became a boxer, giving lessons at the Hotel Metropole. He went bankrupt and went to North China. From 1907 to 1914 he spent most of his time in the Malay States, where he practised as a bookmaker. He associated with men suspected of espionage, and was himself suspected. Before absconding to North China he obtained a quantity of jewellery from a woman.

At the end of the war he went to the Malay States and came under the notice of the police in the sale of a large consignment of arms. He was associated with Marshal Chang Tso-lin, and obtained 5,000 dollars from a Chinese, giving a postdated cheque, and then he fled. In 1926 he married an American woman at Kinkiank, but did not live with her for long. He came back to Shanghai in 1926, where he opened a business. He disappeared after passing a number, of worthless cheques;

DEPORTED FROM CHINA. Nothing more was heard of him until 1929, when it was known that he was trafficking in arms in China. There was a complaint made in 1931 that he obtained 20,000 dollars by fraud, but nothing further was done. He- travelled about China until he was arrested in 1933, when he was deportedln 1935 he came to London and met a woman who was now his wife. He told her that he had large business intertsts in China. They were married at Hendon Register Office on March 10, 1935. . After they were married they went to Paris, where he deserted her after receiving sevral sums of money from her. He gave her a cheque with which to return to London, but it was worthless and she could not cash it. “Since this case came up, adder! the detective, “I have received complaints about cheques issued by Christie since 1920. In one case he got £4l from the engineer of the vessel which took him to China. Christie, giving evidence on his own behalf, said he had been backwards and forwards to China for 40 years. He came home in 1916 to join ■ Kitchener’s Army.” He joined the Marines first and was transferred to the Regular Army. “I passed through all the different ranks and became lieutenant-colonel," he added. 4 Cross-examined by Mr. Anthony Hawke, prosecuting, Christie said that he had been shipping arms to Abyssinia and, through France, to Spain. He said he had property in China, and to the best of his knowledge there was £1,750 in his banking account in Shanghai. He produced correspondence relating to the purchase of aeroplanes in England for export to China on commission. Mr. Hawke, referring to one case: I put it to you that you were calling yourself Colonel Christie?—Once a colonel always a colonel.

Mr. Hawke: Yes, if you are not deprived of your rank. Christie: The first I heard of my having been deprived of my rank was when I heard it in the police court.

Re-examined by Mr. E. AV. Butcher his counsel, Christie said that he had the rank of general in the Chinese army and that he was a major in the Russian army until 1904.

£120,000 DEAL.

Mr. Gavin Lawson, of Chalfont St. Peter, mineral merchant, who said he had a license to deal in arms, stated that in 1934 he was acting with Christie in a deal for the export of arms to China. The question of insurance arose, and held the deal up. Had it gone through, Christie would have made about £60,000. Mr. Lawson added that at the end of 1936 Christie was engaged on anothhis arrest. Had it gone through he er arms deal, which was stopped by would have received about £l,OOO. Sir Herbert Wilberforce, deputychairman: Who was to pay for the arms? —Col. Christie’s clients. They were Chinese names, but I cannot tell you what they were. Were they the Chinese Government? —I understood that they were one of the Chinese Governments. .Mr. Lawson said that he had arranged for the supply of arms by firms in Belgium and Germany. If the deal had gone through the profit would have been more than £120,000. Sir Herbert Wilberforce, summing up, said that he considered that Christie's profession of exporting arms to China was a most discreditable way of making his living.