EX-VICAR’S CRIMES.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21019, 7 May 1930, Page 7

EX-VICAR’S CRIMES.

BIGAMY AND FRAUDS REVEALED. FIVE YEARS' IMPRISONMENT. The remarkable criminal record of an ex-vicar was revealed at Liverpool Assizes recently, when he was sent to five years’ penal servitude for offences at Liverpool and Blackpool, Percy Stanley Scott, aged 63, a tall man of venerable and rather distinguished appearance, was found guilty of obtaining by false pretences £364 worth of jewellery from Messrs Boodle and Dunthorne, jewellers, Lord street, Liverpool, and sums totalling £3OO from James Caygill, company house proprietor, Blackpool, and £25 from William Aislitt, estate agent, Blackpool. Inspector Thomson then stated that Scott, whose correct name was Samuel Waiter Kay, was born at Bury in 1867. He was educated at Bury Grammar School, and after three years as a pupil teacher at a local Wesleyan school, studied at Richmond College with a view to entering the‘Wesleyan ininistry. He then went to Carnforth, "where he joined, the Church of England and was ordained. After serving as a curate at Salford he became vicar of Middleton Parish Churca, .where he married in 1892. He'later became a vicar in Warwickshire, and remained there until 1898, when he was convicted at Warwick Assizes of forgery and sentenced to 12 months’ imprisonment. His subsequent convictions were:—Lancaster Sessions, 1900, five years for false pretences; Liverpool Assizes,' 1906, five years for forgery, false pretences, and bigamy; Wells Assizes, 1915, five years for forgery and bigamy. The judge: Had these women any money?- • Inspector Thomson: As far as I know he did ; not .'Cpmmt;"’bigamy’; to- obtain Wealth..' 1 Inspector Thomson said .that at 'St. Albans Sessions in 1920 'Scott was sentenced to five years for false, pretences. In June, 1929, at Chester Assizes, he received six months for false pretences in the name of Hatfield. It then transpired that on leaving Blackpool he-had obtained money and lodgings by false pretences from various people at Llandudno. On his discharge from prison in November he went straight to the North-Western Hotel. Liverpool, and lived there until, his arrest. The case for the prosecution, .outlined by Mr Howard Jones, this week, was" that Scott obtained jewellery, bn .November 25 ■by representing himself ,as a man of wealth ■ who ■ was contemplating marriage. He referred Messrs Boodle and Dunthorne to a Liverpool solicitor to whom - he hatj previously made statements, as to his means, and given instructions for the preparation of a codicil to his will. Half an hour after obtaining the jewellery, Scott pledged a £125 emerald and diamond ring for £SO, having first asked £BO. It was suggested that he used £ls of this to pay his hill at the North-Wes-tern Hotel, where he had been staying for about 10 days, having described himself on the register as a member of the Royal Automobile Club, London. Scott gave a £2B bracelet watch to a Manchester widow to whom he proposed marriage. All the jewellery had been recovered. The Blackpool charges related to loans obtained on a similar representation. Scott also stated that his brother had been drowned at sea t leaving Mm sole heir to an estate which had been variously estimated at £12,000 to £25,000. Scott, who conducted his own defence, declined to go into the witness box. “ I never take an oath, on principle,” he said, but he made a remarkable speech of two hours’ duration from the dock. The address was couched in such high-flown language, that Mr Justice Roche intervened with the suggestion that Scott should express himself in simple terms, hut Scott replied: “I am putting it in my natural way.” He maintained that the charges against him were unfounded, that he really Was a man of affluence and could “ buy up the firm lock, stock, and barrel,” and that the police in pursuing their obsessions had become persecutors. “ They have tried to inveigle from me my one ewe lamb, the repository, of my resources,” he declared. “ Every_ man likes to be his own high priest in some exclusive sanctuary he treasures. Why should 1 throw open the sacred temple of -my affairs to be desecrated by these rapacious underlings? ” Scott quoted Scripture in referring to friends who had turned against him: ■ “ These- are they who, when tribulation and persecution ariseth, are offended, because they have no root in themselves.” Scott declared that he had no intention of pladging the ring when he bought it, but outside the shop he met a woman friend who was in urgent need of £45, “ I have asked the prosecution not to offer evidence on the further indictment,’.’ said the judge in passing sentence, “ because I hope that even now you may end your life, which is already advanced, without thc_ stigma of a verdict that you are an habitual criminal. But the only hope for you and for the unfortunate people on whom you have been in the habit if living by means of tissues of lies rs that you should be confined for a considerable period.”