TOOK TO CRIME

Greymouth Evening Star, 21 April 1938, Page 12

TOOK TO CRIME

ONCE EARNED £3OOO A YEAR. LONDON, March 8. A brilliant agricultural ei L«J lieel n ’ who once lived at the rate of £25,000 a year, came out of Pentonville Prison, London, recently, and ini the obscurity of a country cottage is planning to begin life anew at 41. Brynar James Owen, former. £oooo---year genius of scientific farming, has served a seyen-months prison sentehee for obtaining credit without disclosing that he was an undischarged bankrupt. It was Ills second prison sentence. Six years ago, Dr. B. JOwen, responsible for many Government publications, still standard works, was sentenced to four years penal servitude for obtaining £65.000 by forgery from two farm-tractor cornpan es. He said: “Living at the. rate cf £25,000 a year when my annual income 'was £3OOO brought me to prison. At one time 1 had' a house at Oxford with 10 gardeners, another house in Hyde Park Square, and a villa at Cannes. I owned two’ cars, each of which had cost £2OOO. My luncheon bills at one London 1 hotel were about £2OOO a year. Now 1 have toppled right down the ladder.

“In 1919, when 1 was only 23. 1 was appointed chief engirieer of the Ministry of Agriculture. Then Oxford University set up, at the suggestion of the Government, an Institute of Agricultural Engineering. I became the first director. J developed! new schemes for the drainage of land and the drying of crops. I went to Italy oh a commission to inquire into a process for developing sugar from beet. “At Oxford University I developed

certain patents during my investigations. These patents, with the authority of the (jbvernmerit, were sold to a. private company. When the company had spent £8(10,000' on their development, more money was l difficult to obtain. 1 took a 'drastic step—one which made me into a criminal. I forged a letter, purporting to be signed by Mr L. L.' H. Thompson, an official of the‘Treasury. With this letter I obtained 1 without much difficulty, £65,000 from two tractor companies. 1 had hoped to procure' sufficient money from a Government grant to repay the- loan. “Unfortunately, events'' moved swiftly. 1 was enjoying life at my villa at Cannes' when Government auditors investigated the departmental accounts in a routine way. They got in touch with the two firms' who iiad paid the money to find out the reason.”