COUNTERFEIT COINS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21165, 23 April 1932, Page 3 (Supplement)

COUNTERFEIT COINS.

" TAKEN AS CURIOSITIES."

STORY OF FOUR HALF-CROWNS.

TWELVE MONTHS IN PRISON,

That two men, one a moulder, undergoing terms of imprisonment in Hull Prison, found .opportunities while in gaol to experiment in the making of counterfeit half-crowns was the startling assertion made at York Assizes by Leslie Austin Duce, aged 21, unemployed seaman, of Hull, who, found guilty of being in possession of spurious coins, and also of making them, was sentenced to 12 months imprisonment. Duce, who denied the charge, told a remarkable story of how he came to have four bad half-crowns in his possession. He taid he shared lodgings in Hull with a man named Brown, and one day Brown 11115 visited by a friend named White, who had been in prison. Duce stated that he saw Brown and White subsequently make spurious half-crowns. " They made them tjuirkly," he declared, adding, " I suppose Brown made-dozens of them. The four half-crowns found by the police in his possession. Duce averred, weie taken away -by him as curiosities. Althougli lie had watched Brown and making counterfeits he had nothing to do with the business himself.

The cai-e for the prosecution, as outlined by Mr. Clive Salter, was that on January 11 Duce met a man named George Henry Forsyth. Taking from his pocket two counterfeit half-crowns, he said to Forsyth, " That is how you want to '"ake them. I make, them from the tops of soda-water siphons, and I am going to put brass into'them to make them rin ?-" /.

Duce suggested to Forsyth that he should luve some of the coins, and that they should go " fifty-fifty." Forsyth informed the police of this conversation, and Duce was arrested shortly afterwards he was searched four base coins wore found on him, and. when asked who fiiade them, replied. " I would rather not Sa y. The chap who made them is known you, and has done time before, and it .Would mean penal servitude next time."

A visit by detectives to the room in *'hich Dure lived led to the finding of a saucepan containing molten lead and the plass portion of a soda-water siphon. Shown these things at. the police station, I)uf-e declared that he knew nothing about tlieru.

A police inspector in cross-examination Staler] that he knew a man named "liite who was in prison for coining. Passing sentence as stated, Mr. Justice Humphreys remarked that, apart from the actual offpnce of coining, it was detesthow coiners defrauded people like Jraal] shop-keepers who could ill-afford to lose the rrionev.