TEA FRAUD

Hokitika Guardian, 6 May 1936, Page 2

TEA FRAUD

GANG BROKEN UP,

LONDON, April 28

A gang of “tea tricksters” who have been victimising housewives in the London area is now in gaol.

Judge Dodson at tlie Old Bailey yesterday passed sentence on three men accused of frauds on women, who were induced by promises of legendary prizes to buy large quantities of tea. One woman, it was alleged, parted with £525, and the men obtained £BB in one day at Aldershot. Remarking that too much publicity could not he given to the case, Judge Dodsonsaid: “How this fraud flourished as it did is a tribute to the vocabulary of the canvassers—and a severe censure on the gullibility of housekeepers and women.”

Thomas Henry Sl'ark ; aged 41, a traveller, was sentenced to two years’ imprisonment; Vernon Alexander Robinson, 26, a salesman, to 21. months’; and Stanley James Strong, 28, a warehouseman, to 15 months’.

They thus join in prison five men with whom they 'were charged, a.t Brentford in Januarv, and who were sentenced at the pojice court to periods of two to nine months.