YOUNG WOMAN DUPED

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XXIII, Issue 104, 13 April 1933, Page 6

YOUNG WOMAN DUPED

MAN’S TWO FIANCEES. “ROMANCER AND ADVENTURER.” DUNEDIN, April 12. The story of how an insurance agent, who was described by the magistrate, Mr J. R. Bartholomew, as a “romancer and adventurer,” became engaged at the same time to two young women, from one of whom he borrowed extensively, was unfoled in the Magistrate’s Court yesterday, when Valerie Boyne Murphy proceeded against Stewart Smith, of Invercargill, claiming £39 12s for money lent. The original claim was for £5O, but the amount was altered on the application of counsel, who stated that definite proof could bo put forward only in respect of the smaller amount. The parties met in Dunedin towards the ena of 1931 and became engaged. Up to the time tho engagement was broken off she loaned him sundry amounts which had not been repaid. Shortly after the engagement, the plaintiff met a Mr Gray from whom she learned that Smith already was engaged to his sister-in-law. Gray then went to Invercargill with the two ladies and they saw Smith. The engagement was then broken off. After giving evidence in regard to the money loaned to the defendant, the plaintiff said: “He told me when ho first came to Dunedin that he was the son of a baronet, and that it would be necessary in May, 1932, for him to go home to Scotland and assume the title of ‘Sir,’ and also to obtain a share of tho estate of his late father. He did not state who his father was at the time, but later, when there was a camp of the Boys’ Brigade in 1932, he told me that his father was* Sir William Smith, founder of the movement. He also informed me that his eldest brother was Sir Horace Lockwood SmithDorrien. Smith himself would be 39 or 40 years of age. I looked up encyclopaedias and found that Sir Dilliam Smith was born in 1854 and died in 1914. Sir Horace Lockwood SmithDorrien was born in 1858, four years after his alleged father.” Tho magistrate said there was positive proof of Smith’s indebtedness to the plaintiff. The cldcnee was such that he had no hesitation iff accepting the plaintiff’s account. Judgment would be given for the plaintiff for the amount claimed, with costs £8 8s 6d.