BLACKMAILING PLOT.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20520, 22 March 1930, Page 2 (Supplement)

BLACKMAILING PLOT.

TWO MEN IMPRISONED.

THREE WIDOWS VICTIMISED. "TRADING ON IGNORANCE." A sensational case in which two men were accused of victimising widows concluded at the Old Bailey recently, when the men were sentenced to terms of imprisonment. Arthur Frederick Victor Hafner, aged 49, a stockbroker, and Thomas William Mulholland, aged 42, a fruit bottler, were accused of demanding with menaces £2OO from a woman referred to as "Sirs. H," and obtaining from two other women £3OO and £470 by false pretences. Tfiey were found guilty of conspiracy and demanding money with menaces.

The Recorder sentenced Hafner to 21 months' hard labour and Mulholland to 18 months in the second division on the charge of conspiracy, and he sentenced Ilafner to five years' penal servitude and Mulholland' to three years' penal servitude on the charge of blackmail, the sentences to run concurrently. He also ordered Mulholland to pay the costs of the prosecution.

Hafner, who defended himself, did not go into the witness-,box, but addressed the jury from the dock. He said that in obtaining sums of money from the three widows he had no actual intention of defrauding them. He expected, as soon

as a. business deal went through, to be in possession of sufficient funds to repay part of what was owing, form a trust company for working a tin concession and other business, and give the three women shares in that company in return for the money they had advanced.

. It had been said he proposed marriage to" the three women in the case, but one of the widows had stated that he did not propose: The other two seemed to expect that he Would propose to them. He was separated from his wife at the time.

"It lias been stated that the three 'widfews were, poor defenceless women," he added, " But ' Mrs. H.' is the widow of an officer who was on the staff of the Earl of Ypres during the war. She is an educated women, and should have some knowledge of the world. " Another of the women kept a boardinghouse for many years, and met all sorts and conditions of people, and.the third widow had been a publican for some years." Hafner denied that he used any threats, and added that " Mrs. H" was of a highly strung temperament. The Recorder, in passing sentence, sa|d that they were two men of education and some position who had been convicted of the terrible offence of conspiracy. They had traded on the business ignorance of some women with set purpose. " Anything more contemptible for a public school man is impossible, to imag- I ine," he added. " One cannot think they

could havo stooped to such diabolical ingenuity as the sordid drama that they rehearsed and enacted, each playing a part to terrify "Mrs. H" and play on her fears." Divisional Detective-Inspector Horwell proved two sentences of three years' penal servitude each against Hafner at the Old Bailey, one in June 1920 for fraudulent conversion of property while carrying 011 the business of stock and sharebroker, and tho other in May 1924 for fraudulent conversion of money while carrying on the business of stockbroker. Hafner was a British subject of Bavarian extraction, he said son of the late Chevalier Hafner, a highly respected Bavarian who for many years held tho appointment of director of Continental travel to -royalty. He was educated at a public school and went lo one of the universities. He changed his name by deed poll to Hamilton soon after the outbreak of the war, an.l in October 1915 he joined the Army, being posted to tho King's Royal Rifles, but after four months he deserted. Mulholland was a married man with four children.