FRAUD CONSPIRACY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22707, 21 October 1935, Page 16

FRAUD CONSPIRACY

"ADVENTURESS OF WORST TYPE " AGED WIDOW'S MONEY STORY OF A TRUST (From Oub Own Correspondent) (By Air Mail) LONDON, September 28. , The trial of Major T. S. Impey, R. L. Rogers, and Lilian L. Burton (formerly Mrs Bamberger) for fraudulent conspiracy ended in substantial sentences of imprisonment for all accused. Major Impey (55) was formerly a major in I his Majesty's service, and was described 1 as a company director. Rogers (35) was described as a secretary, Mrs Buiton (47) as an authoress. j It was alleged by the prosecution that | by means of a story of the existence of j a trust fund in America, worth several , million pounds, large sums of money were extracted from a widow, aged 84, Mrs Eyre-Williams, and that she parted in all, with about £34,000. Detective Sergeant M'Grath, of Scotland Yard, said that in one form or an other Mrs Eyre-Williams parted with £34,386 between November, 1929, and May, 1935. Of this sum Major Impev was alleged to have received over £32,000, Mrs Burton £I4OO, and Rogers £3OO. He said that Impey, in a statement, alleged that after getting the first £OOOO from Mrs Eyre-Williams, Mrs Burton said that they had better establish themselves. He (Impey) put £IOOO in a tin#iine; Mrs Burton spent £ISOO on furnishing her fiat, and the remainder of the money was spent like water. Detective Inspector Lynch said that Impey came from a respectable family in the Midlands. He had supplied the police with all information required respecting the present charge. Major Impey, in his evidence, said that he met Mrs Burton accidentally on coming out of a West End hotel. They talked about all sorts of things, and later he gathered that she was engaged in extremely difficult divorce proceedings against her husband. Mrs Burton took a flat, and Rogers was introduced j to him as a private detective assisting J her in her divorce proceedings. Major Impey denied that he represented himself to Mrs Burton as a wealthy man. They became engaged in 1930, when Mrs Burton was waiting for divorce. Mrs Eyres-Williams knew about it and she was very happy. When he left America he was informed that the trust was worth £6,500,000. When in New York Rogers pointed out a skyscraper, the name of which, ho said, was connected with the family of Mi Bamberger. Until he read a report of the divorce proceedings, he did not know that Mrs Burton's real name was Bamberger. MRS BURTON'S ALLEGED STORIES. Major Impey said that Mrs Burton told him she had been to Albany, where a lawyer left a conference with Mr Roosevelt in order to discuss her legal affairs for two hours. The defendant was impressed by her. story, as it was a fact that Mr Roosevelt was in Albany at the time. On another occasion, Major Impev alleged, Mrs Burton told him that Rogers had described the kidnapping in a yacht of a clerk who had some papers,, of the trust. Rogers had a great fight and escaped. He had a wound on the back of his head when he got back to the hotel. The yacht, said Major Impey, was manned by international crooks, but the wireless officer was an honest man He got friendly with the clerk and was able to send certain short messages through to London in code. Another lawyer in America (No. 2) wanted a yacht to go after the other, and the defendant said he understood that this lawyer spent about £SOOO of his own money on Lis yacht. Questioned about £50,000 which he was intending to settle on Mrs Burton, Major Impey said that that money was to come to him from the trust. THREAT OF MURDER. About that time Mrs Burton told him that she had been threatened with murder, and she had told the police. Lawyer No. 2 gave up the case, and Lawyer No. 3 came on the scene. Major Impey mentioned a meeting with Rogers and Mrs Burton in a taxi cab, when, he alleged, he handed over £IOOO to Mrs Burton to further the investigations into the trust. He next heard that Mr Burton had been arrested on the Continent, and it was necessary to raise money to get him out of prison by bribing either the judge or counsel. Mr J. D. Cassels: You have made practically nothing out of this? Major Impey: I have lost everything, and I am heavily in debt, and I suppose I shall have to go bankrupt when this is over. Rogers, in his evidence, said he went to an elementary school. He enlisted in the army, and from 1920 to 1922 was in the C.I.D. at the Admiralty. Later he became a clerk in the Officers' Branch of the Ministry of Pensions, and he was in that situation when he first met Mrs Burton in 1923. Mr John Bassett (for Rogers):- I think that it was a mutual attraction when you first met? —Yes. And you decided to throw in your lot together and go to Canada?—Yes. He stayed with Mrs Burton in Canada selling antiques. At the same time he took other jobs—work as a motor salesman and selling real estate. He returned home in 1928, and, hearing that Mrs Burton had been married and convicted of perjury, he decided to employ his spare time in obtaining evidence for her divorce., Mrs Burton introduced him to Major Impey. The major told him that he had had several concerns and had been Secretary of Air for India. Major Impey treated him like a brother. He had never previously associated with anyone in the same social position. "It gave me an inferiority complex," added Rogers. Mr Bassett: At the beginning of 1930 did Major Impey say what his intentions were with regard to Mrs Burton? —Yes; he wished to marry her, and he wanted me to assist the divorce proceedings. Rogers added: "He told me to spare no expense, and that he would take care of the whole situation." A REMARKABLE SITUATION. Mr Roberts (for the prosecution) asked Rogers: You must have been astonished to find Mrs Burton suddenly blossoming out with that flat in Maida Vale and the car?—l was very pleased. You took a room to be near her? — To be near to her and the situation tu which I was involved. To be near the women you had lived with as man and wife? —Yes. And who admitted in her divorce proceedings in 1931 that she had misconducted" herself with you?—Yes. You are certain that your intimacy with Mrs Burton stopped in 1927? Yes. Yet you remained friends? —Yes. And friends also with Major Impey, who was said to be going to marry her? —Yes. . You three went away together to Pans and to America? —Yes. What a remarkable situation. The fiance, the woman and the former lover of the woman. So your conscience remained quite clear to tha end?—Yes. JUDGE'S SUMMING T "\ Judge Dobson, in summing up, said Major Impey's defence was, " I was told

this story by a woman end I believed it" " You may ask yourselves," Baid the judge, addressing the jury, "whether that explanation is consistent with sanity; whether anybody cutside a lunatic asylum could believe such a story. " During these years he was suffering 'hell on earth.' You may think that is consistent with a man who had his record and who, up to a period in his life, had always been an honest and straightforward man. If, indeed, his conscience was reproaching him in proportion to the sums that were being ex- I tracted, it would not be oxtravagant to say that his sensations were those of the nature he described." Referring to the defence of Mrs Burton, Judge Dobson said they might think that if the old lady were being persuaded continually to part with these large sums of money she must have been told ft pretty colourful story, the narrative must have been made graphic, and the purpose defined must have been specific. If that were so, they might think it a little remarkable that during these years never a word about tli3 trust reached the ears of Mrs Burton. Referring to Rogers's defence, the judge said it was similar to that of Mrs Burton . . . tha*- throughout the period he never heavd of the trust millions or yachts. They never seemed to have asked Major Impey how he could, apparently, by waving a wand over Mrs Eyre-Williams, extract this money. "We are not, of course, concerned with her past," he went on, referring to Mrs Burton. The jury was aware she had been punished for giving false evidence on a former occasion. She had made an attack on Major Impey by saying it was all his doing. They were entitled to know of this conviction, but its only relevancy was that she now put herself forward as a witness of truth. After the jury had returned its verdicts, Mr Mervyn Griffith-Jones, for the prosecution, said that Impey was a man of good character. Mrs Burton had one conviction for perjury and there were no convictions against Rogers. IMPEY'S CAREER. Detective Inspector Lynch said that Impey was a member of an old Quaker family in Worcestershire, his father being a J.P. and a member of the County Council. He had two small posts before the war. He served throughout the war in the R.A.F. and returned to London about 1923. In 1927 he went to India, becoming secretary of the Aero Club at a salary of £I3OO a year. He stayed there two years. He returned to London and made the acquaintance of Mrs Eyre-Williams. "It is only fair to him to say," the officer added, " that up to the time he met Mrs Burton and Rogers he never endeavoured to obtain any money from Mrs Eyre-Williams." _ Mrs Burton was 47 years old. According to the records she was born at Croydon on August 26, 1888. Her father was described as an evangelist preacher. Ho died in 1897. Her mother was still alive. In 1906 she obtained a post as a chorus girl at the Gaiety Theatre, and that year she met Frederick Williams Jenkins, and married him. She was then 18 and not 13, as she stated in her evidence. There was a divorce in 1910, and in the same year she married Bamberger. SENTENCE FOR PERJURY. In 1917 she obtained a divorce, but the King's Proctor intervened, and in September, 1920, she was sentenced to nine months at the Old Bailey for perjury. Meanwhile, she went to Gretna Green in February, 1920, and married the eon of a very wealthy Government merchant. She then gave the name of Marchmont. She had known Rogers since 1923, and lived with him at various addresses as man and wife. In 1931 she went to America. She represented herself as a playright and a granddaughter of the Duke of Bedford. Later she returned to this country. When she was sentenced for perjury in 1920 the Judge described her as a woman who lead a life of vicious immorality. " There is no doubt," Inspector Lynch added, "she is an adventuress of the worst type. She is extremely untruthful and has an extraordinary temper. She can feign illness and shed tears at will when the occasion demands it. I am sorry I can say nothing in her favour." JUDGE ADDRESSES MRS BURTON. Sentencing Mrs Burton, the judge said, "I am dealing with you on tha facts of this case. Whatever happened in 1920 you paid the penalty of your offence. I shall pay no regard to that. It is the privilege of your sex to bring to man not only comfort, but inspiration to do noble things, and it is obvious that you have done exactly the reverse "To what extent you are responsible for the whole matter I don't pretend to know, and I don't intend to speculate. I can only deal with the case as I find it. "That you took part in it there can be no doubt at all. The least sentence I can pass upon you on the receiving counts is four years, penal servitude. The sentence on the conspiracy charge will be two years' imprisonment, and two years' imprisonment' on the charge of obtaining money by false pretences; the sentences to run currently for the four years' penal servitude. Mrs Burton showed no emotion at the sentence, but walked calmly from the dock. TREACHEROUS BEHAVIOUR. Sentencing Impey, the judge said: "It is a painful thing to see a man of your age and position where you are, but your conduct to your benefactress was almost unnameable. "To a woman who had extended to you the hand of friendship, you behaved in a treacheous manner. Looking back on it, no doubt no one can be more ashamed of it than you are. Although I have no doubt that you fell under the evil influence of this woman, the evidence shows that you were the mainspring of the concern inasmuch as you had access to Mrs Eyre-Williams. You knew you had won her confidence, and you -betrayed it almost every day. It is a deplorable situation from that point of view. I have no doubt that you desired to satisfy this woman's greed for money." He passed sentence on Impey of live years' penal servitude, two years' imprisonment on the false pretences charges and two years' imprisonment on the conspiracy charges, the sentences to run concurrently. Rogers was sentenced to 12 months imprisonment.