ADVERTISING SWINDLER

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXVI, 13 February 1932, Page 7

ADVERTISING SWINDLER

OPERATIONS IN BLENHEIM SENT TO GAOL FOR A YEAR One John William Page, alias John Payne, was in trouble at the Magistrate’s Court in Blenheim on Thursday afternoon when he appeared before Messrs D. McCallum and F. Mogridge, J.’sP., on remand on a charge of vagrancy, and was further charged on six counts with obtaining money by false pretences (reports the ‘‘Express’). He pleaded guilty to all the offences. . Sergeant Petersen, who represented the police, explained that the accused professed to be an advertising agent, being one of the genus who travels from town to. town inducing credulous and easily gullible shopkeepers and others to part with money for advertising of an extremely doubtful nature, only to leave, them lamenting. While ’in Blenheim the accused. went round with a large placard on which all the advertising spaces except two or three were marked as “sold.” He informed his prospective victims that practically all the spaces had been booked and that the placard was to be issued immediately and would be posted up in all the hotels, garages* and service stations in the province. In most cases lie said'the .placard was to be issued on the following day, and that the necessary arrangements had been made with a printer, but, though he saw some of his clients and told them this story early in January, no printer was approached until after the accused had been interviewed by the police as to bis means of livelihood. He then saw one printer, who turned him down, and he secuied a quotation from another, who insisted, however, on a substantial deposit before the work would be undertaken and the accused was certainly not in a position to pay such a deposit, for he had only 10s Old in his possession when arrested. Placards found in the possession ot the accused, which were exhibited to the Court, showed that the accused had been operating in Christchurch, Cheviot, Kaikoura, Seddon, l’icton, and Blenhein’ the .words oi Sergeant Petersen, his victims must have been legion, but the Sergeant said nothing was to be gained by charging him with a Ins offences, though he suggested thiii, the Court should consider making whatever sentences it imposed on the charges now before the Court cumulative. • He added that the accused had 3 previous convictions for similar offences and was badly in need of a lesson. The accused, from the box, claimed that the amount of his uncollected accounts would more than pay the cost ot printing the placard. The Bench imposed a sentence of two months imprisonment oil each ot tne six charges, the sentences to be cumulative—twelve months m all. On the vagrancy charge a conviction only was recorded.