"SECRET SIGN"

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVI, Issue 23507, 18 November 1939, Page 2 (Supplement)

"SECRET SIGN"

Bogus Intelligence Deceived

DENOUNCED by the magistrate as "a humbug," a man who had posed as a Service officer was given the maximum sentence of three months at the South - Western Court, London. He is John Thompson, aged 37, 7I described as a clerk, of Hexham, and it was : alleged against him that he falsely represented 1 himself to be a captain in the Intelligence Department.

IT was revealed in evidence that Thompson ingratiated himself with a family named Grove by posing as an officer of the Indian Army, seconded for duty with the British Intelligence. Mr. Grove, an insurance broker, related that some time ago he had business with a Mr. Warner, who had formerly been a partner of Mr. Grove's brother. He had deposited Consols to the value of £SOO with Warner's bank as a guarantee against an overdraft. Thompson, whom Mr. Grove believed to be working in the Intelligence, informed him that owing to depreciation in securities the bank proposed to realise on tho Consols, and suggested that if Mr. Grove deposited the sum of £22 the bank would not proceed. Mr. Grove immediately handed the money to Thompson in £1 notes. Arrested as Deserter Mr. Grove's brother, now a private in the R.A.0.C., and formerly a surveyor at a militia camp in North Wales, gave evidence that he enlisted in the Army but could not join his unit until Ills civilian work was completed. Because of a misunderstanding in the office of the Western Command he was arrested as a deserter. Thompson, whom he had just met, informed the police officers that, as an Intelligence officer, he could "fix the matter." Thompson wore on the inside of his coat lapel a little badge, which he declared was "the secret sign," by which members of the Intelligence Service recognised each other. Grove was ultimately released and Thompson was paid certain money for "arranging things." Then the Grove family became suspicious and Mr. Richard Grove went to Scotland Yard. Detective-Sergeant Philip Burney had another astonishing story to tell. The "badge,'' he said, was a familiar religious emblem and had nothing to do with military service.

In Thompson's' possession he found a priority telegram cohchnd 4 in term* which would lend people-to believe that he was in the Secret Service. Thompson admitted to the police that he had sent this telegram to himself. Thonin son's only military service which the police had been able to discover was a short term as a private in a York, shire regiment. Colonel Hinchley Cooke, of Mls" declared that Thompson was not and never had been, a member of the Tn telligenee Service. "Most Impressive Manner" 1 Thompson, who appeared in the dock with his arm in a sling—the result the police declared, of an affair in a l)ti blic-house— pleaded that lie had once been ;i lieutenant in the Indian Army. He told his newly-married wife that now war had come, he would got hit commission hack and would soon become a captain I.A. : ' He assumed that his wife had enn fused "1.A." with "1.D.," and that was how, he suggested, people came to regard him as an officer of the Intelligence. He admitted that he had been sentenced in India to two and a-half years' rigorous imprisonment for big. amy. ( Mr. Clafid Mullins 1 the magistrate said he could not accept any of the' pleas, and sentenced Thompson to three months' imprisonment. The News of the World reveals that people throughout South-West London were accepting Thompson as a highly, placed Intelligence officer. On one occasion the guard turned out for him at a military barracks. He so impressed the authorities at an A.R.P. ambulance depot that lie was detailed to investigate serious losses of petrol occurring at a number of sub-depots. He hired motor-cars and drove about, in considerable style. "He had the most- impressive manner," said a local A.R.P. official, "and it astonishes me to learn thai; he was only an out-of-work clerk."