WOMAN SUPER-SHOPLIFTER

New Zealand Times, Volume XLIX, Issue 11247, 27 June 1922, Page 8

WOMAN SUPER-SHOPLIFTER

NURSE WHO MASQUERADED IN FIFTY NAMES. ‘‘ln my 25 years’ experience this is the worst case of shoplifting I have ever heard.” So said Mr Frances, the Westminster magistrate, when a refin-ed-looking woman, Margaret Hunter Lewis, was charged with obtaining goods worth £9O belonging to Hare rods. Mrs Lewis, a certified nurse, was reported to have committed frauds in over 50 different names. “You are a wicked and skilfnl perpetrator of frauds,” said the magistrate to the woman. “I thought that I had come to the end of my experience in shop-lifting, but I am afraid I have not.” Mr Philip Conway, for the prosecution, said the case was probably one of the most remarkable and amazing ever brought before the court. It was without parallel. False pretences ran through all the woman’s transactions, said Mr Conway. She even procured two receipt stamps almost identical with those used at Harrods. Only the woman herself could say where the vast amount of stolen property had gone. Goods fonnd in her possession were valued at about £3OO, and so great was the variety of articles she obtained that she practised her frauds on thirty-six different departments. Mrs Lewis practised the device of taking a room at a hotel, such as tfte Cadogan and the Kenilworth. She would stay overnight, and next morning goods would be sent to her address to the hotel, and to the particular number of the room. The magistrate said she would have to go to prison for- twelve calendar months.