FALSE PRETENCES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21910, 23 March 1933, Page 8

FALSE PRETENCES

ARREST ELUDED FOR SEVEN YEARS ACCUSED SENT TO PRISON. (Per United Press Association.) WELLINGTON, March 22. Disappearing in 1926 after he had cashed three valueless cheques, William Granville Haldane Stevens, a designer, aged 52, succeeded in eluding arrest until last mouth, when he was apprehended at Otaki. Stevens appeared in the Magistrate’s Court to-day, and pleaded guilty to a charge of obtaining £7 10s by means of a valueless cheque, and to three charges of stealing bicycles. Detective Sergeant Revel] said that in 1926 the accused lived at Thames. He borrowed a cheque form there, and signed it with the name ,of a resident of that town. After cashing the cheque with an hotelkeeper he went to another town, where he did a similar thing with two other cheque forms. He then disappeared and it was not until last month that his identity was discovered. After the accused had been arrested at Otaki it was ascertained that he had stolen bicycles at Levin, Lower Hutt, and Wellington. The accused was sentenced to six months’ imprisonment on the charge of false pretences, and to three months’ imprisonment on each of the other charges, the terms to be concurrent.