SERIES OF CRIMES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20257, 17 May 1929, Page 14

SERIES OF CRIMES.

fourteen CHARGES LAID.

THEFT AND FALSE PRETENCES.

" NORTH ISLAND COVERED."

"Warrants have been out all over the country for this*man. and in all he has got £lO4 by false pretences," said ChiefDetective Hammond when 14 charges of theft and false pretences were preferred in the Police Court yesterday against Edward Arthur Peters, aged 35, a labourer. Poters admitted all the offences.

According to the charges accused had commenced a series of crimes in November, 1927, when he had obtained £2 10s by representing that his child was an inmate in the King .. George Hospital, Itolorua, and that he required money to buy an invalid chair. In June, 1928, ho had stolen £2 in money, the next offence being committed at Wanganui, where he stated that he was a horse trainer from Auckland and obtained £3. The following month at Mataura he got £6 by representing that his wife had died at Stillwater and he required money to pay his fare there. In September he had stolen jewellery valued at £37, and later in the month be obtained £3 at Hastings by saying he was a farmer at Hunterville and had two colts he wanted trained.

The next offence took place on April 4 of the present year, when Peters stole a fountain pen and a book of 50 blank cheques, of a total value of £1 10s. The same day he issued a valueless cheque and obtained goods and money to the extent of £8 Is, committing the same offence in Auckland three times the following day. Three days later -Peters repeated the crime, and again on the 10th he obtained further funds with a cheque.

Mr. Hammond said Peters had been very difficult to trace, and be had covered practically the whole of the North Island until he was finally arrested at Kaikohe. From Pokeno north he had worked his way by means of valueless cheques. In addition he had told a variety of stories to people to get money. In 1926 Peters had been in Court on six charges of false pretences and theft and had then been granted three years' probation. Six months later he had been given three months' imprisonment for theft. Sentence of six months' imprisonment, to be followed by two years' reformative detention, was imposed by the magistrate, Mr. F. K. Hunt.