WOMAN'S AMAZING CAREER

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 3713, 5 October 1926, Page 2

WOMAN'S AMAZING CAREER

SIXTEEN YEARS OF FRAUD j CREDITS TOTALLING £30,000 Frail, white-haired, and benevolentlooking, a woman of sixty, whoso nefarious schemes had brought her into the dock, created great astonishment when her amazing career of fraud was revealed at the Bristol Quarter Sessions recently. Confronted with a series of charges of obtaining money from various persons by lalso pretences, and with obtaining credit without disclosing the fact that she was an undischarged bankrupt, this elderly woman, Elizabeth Margaret Grant Greer, otherwise Bessie Field, described as a confectioner, pleaded guilty and was sentenced to fifteen months' imprisonment with hard labor.

The prisoner’s get-rich-qnick opera tions wore disclosed by Mr E. 11. C

Wetbcred, who related that at Leicester. where .she was adjudged bankrupt, the deficiency was about £'o,ooo. but she was made bankrupt, before that in London, when there was a deficiency of £5,000. Similar transactions to that with which she was charged in Bristol had been carried on before in other places. In -Newcastle she was wanted in connection with the Rapid Returns Company, which she carried on there during 1,1)11-10. When she absconded from Bristol site went to Hull, where she started as a high-class costumier, and whore she incurred liabilities ol over £2,700. There was a warrant outstanding at Hull for her. From there she went to Blackpool, where she traded as a. baker and confectioner. She was there arrested.

There was also complaint trom Glasgow of oltences committed there by the prisoner in 1021. Between 1010 and .102(1 she had obtained credit to the tune of £50,000, the greater part of which had never been repaid. She took important business premises in a leading thorough tare, and gave people the impression that she was a person of substance, so that they allowed her to have credit.

Something of the prisoner's Jufcioi y was given by Dcteetive-superinUmdent Tanner, who stated that slie was Relieved to be a single woman, at Southport in 18fJ(i, but she declined to give any information respecting her antecedents. “On April 12, 1910,” continued Superintendent Tanner, “ she was adjudged bankrupt, her liabilities being £5,13115. From December, 1911. until February, 19215, she traded at Neweastle-on-Tyne at the Rapid Returns Company. In February, 19111, she left Newcastle, and many people sought her for money. In 1915 she was living with her mother at Sunnymede, Quorn, Leicestershire, as Bessie Greer. She was the tenant of the house, which sho furnished elaborately, mostly on credit. She became interested in a business known as the Medical Carbon Company, but was soon in financial difficulties, and an execution for £220 and a home furnisher’s account was levied upon her goods at Quorn. “The accused absconded from Quorn on May 16, 1916, and was adjudicated bankrupt a mouth later. Her liabilities were £7,169, and a dividend of lO.td in ,the £ was paid. From August to November, 1916, as Ada Scott, she was employed by a Loudon firm of advertising specialists as a house-to-house canvasser. From 1916 until early in 1918 sho was employed by another firm as advertising superintendent, and from early in 1918 until the end of the war, as Mollie Walton, she was employed as manageress of the Crowndalc Splinterless Glass Works, Camden Town.

“ In the early part of 1920, as Mary Walton, accused was managing director of Kent Toy Company, Maidstone. This business was carried on for about eight months, employing about thirty to forty girls and several ex-service disabled men, who were paid weekly from a. bank overdraft on moneylenders’ chits. During this period accused obtained by fraudulent means a large sum of money from local men, who. however, took no action. At this time she leased a vicarage at Burnham, near Maidstone, and furnished it on the hire-purchase system, and had electric light installed in the village church, but did not pay for it. Later she sold the furniture she had obtained on hire, and, with her mother, absconded.

“ The sheriff took possession of the works of the Kent Toy Company, and the Official Recorder adjudged the company bankrupt and the place was sold up. In January, 1925, as Bessie Field, accused obtained the lease of premises in Bristol, and carried on business there as a. cooked meat ‘.specialist until May IG. when she absconded. Later she was adjudged bankrupt in Bristol. Her liabilities were .£9,000, and a dividend of 7.U1 in the C was paid. In every place she has been, at least .since .1910, she has been accompanied and assisted by another woman, who had passed as her sister.”

In passing sentence, the Recorder, Mr Holman Gregory, K.C., observed that in the ordinary course, as she had never been previously convicted, lie might, if prisoner had been a young woman, have dealt with her in a. way which he hoped would have encouraged her to reform, but she was sixty, and an educated woman of ability, who had flic opoprl unity of leading an honest life. 'Flic offence of obtaining money mi credit was (piite apart from Lbe others, which shoved cruel and heartless fraud. If a person could be guilty of such fraud, and, succeeding in one place, went on from town to town, that person must he punished. “In order to obtain money to enter upon rash speculations.” went on the Recorder, “ she bad induced poor working girls to part with perhaps the last penny thev had in the world.”