CREDIT BY FRAUD

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23106, 3 August 1938, Page 9

CREDIT BY FRAUD

OFFENCE ADMITTED. LONG JOURNEY IN TAX! FALSE STORY OF SICKNESS. [from our owx correspondent] HAMILTON, Tuesday An admission that he obtained credit to the value of £l4 7s by fraud was made by William Brewer, aged 54, when he appeared before Mr. S. L. Paterson, S.M., in the Hamilton Police Court to-day. " Detective-Sergeant J. Thompson said that on April 3 accused asked a Hamilton taxi-driver named A. E. Martin to meet him at Pirongia. Accused took the taxi to Whatawhata, where ho picked up a Maori girl, and he theai. went to Otewa, Otorohanga, where he met two sisters of the girl. > Accused told the girls ' that their father had been injured in the bush at Te Whaiti, and he proceeded with, the girls in the taxi to Rotorua. He left the car there and disappeared. The taxi-driver took the girls on to Te Whaiti, where they found their father in good health. . .• ~ Detective-Sergeant Thompson added that accused was an habitual criminal who had been released on licence in February. He had 28 previous convictions. Drink was the principal cause of much of his trouble. ' Mr. P. H. Watts pointed out that accused was the worse for liquor at the time, and he.suggested that this fact should have placed tho taxi-driver on bis guard. ' r: ' : Counsel pleaded for leniency for accused. .. Sentence was deferred until Monday.