HARPER AND CO.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1212, 24 May 1895, Page 32

HARPER AND CO.

ARREST OF MR LEONARD HARPER. Cable advices were received here on May 16 announcing the arrest of Mr Leonard Harper, late chief partner in the firm of Harper, Harper and Maude, of Christchurch, at the instance of the New Zealand Government upon a warrant from Scotland Yard. He will be detained under the Fugitive Offenders Act, and charged at Bow street with the larceny of money of a client. One of the most experienced and capable members of the police force will be despatched to London to bring the accused —who, it appears, has been living for some time past in apparently comfortable circumstances in Jersey, and making no effort to escape —back to New ' Zealand. We understand that since it had become apparent that the creditors of the accused did not intend to proceed against him, the Government have had him shadowed for some time past from Scotland Yard. In the absence of Mr Gully, the Crown Prosecutor, the services of Mr Skerrett have been retained for the Crown, and that gentleman is now in Christchurch collecting evidence for dispatch to London. It has been definitely decided that Inspector Pender shall leave for England by the first boat to bring Leonard Harper back to the Colony. London, May 16. _ 'Leonard Harper has bebn arrested in Jersey charged with frauds in Christchurch, in 1892. London, May 19. Leonard Harper was charged at the Bow street Police Court with frauds while acting as attorney, and remanded. He has not been bailed out. He protested his innocence. The police evidence stated that Harper offered to return to the Colony, but that it would not benefit his creditors, as ho himself was living on charity.