HOTEL IN THE AIR.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXII, Issue 19061, 4 July 1925, Page 2 (Supplement)

HOTEL IN THE AIR.

STRANGE FRAUD CASE. " ARCHITECT " AND THE " PLANS." An imaginary hotel costing £140,C00 in imaginary money cost an architect £IOO worth of real work. William SmithHerbert, a man of 50, posing as an official of the Colonial Office, told the architect, Mr. John Bartley Farrugia, of Woolwich, that ho was in charge of the arrangements for the building of hotels in West Africa. Tho first hotel was to be built at Lagos at a cost of £140,000, arid for this Mr. Farrugia was to receive £SOOO to prepare tho plans and £IOOO for plans of each of the other hotels. Mr. Farrugia did £IOO worth of work and lent Smith-Herbert £lO paneling receipt of an imaginary £3OOO cheque, from the Colonial Office. Smith-Herbert also gob an act-or, Mr. Charles Cautley, to givo up his engagements in order to take" charge of tho theatrical side of these fictitious hotels. Mr. Cautley started to form a company to go to Lagos. Such was the story told by a detective at Woolwich Police Court recently. Smith-Herbert, who had been educated at Bedford Grammar School, audi had held commissions in Marshall's Horse (South Africa) and the 11.A.5.C., was sentenced to nine months' imprisonment for obtaining money by false pretences.