HEARTLESS AND CALLOUS FRAUD

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23693, 28 December 1938, Page 10

HEARTLESS AND CALLOUS FRAUD

SCHOOL MISTRESS LOSES £7OOO I THREE YEARS FOR AN AGENT (From Our Own Correspondent) (By Air Mail) LONDON, Dec. 1. Defending counsel said at the Old Bailey that the accused man tried' to take his life when he absconded while on bail last week. The man, Philip Morris Scher, aged 42, an agent, was sentenced to three years’ penal servitude. Scher had been found guilty of obtaining cheques by false pretences, fraudulent conversion and offences under the Bankruptcy Acts. It was alleged that Scher defrauded Miss Annie Faragher, aged 64, a retired school mistress, of about £7OOO. Miss Faragher, in evidence, said that when she visited Scher at his office in Regent street he told her that he had made £ 80,000 the previous year, and that he lived “in a hall at Hendon costing £SOOO. He also told her that he had been worth £IBO,OOO, but never mentioned that he was an undischarged bankrupt. She parted with £7OOO for investment, and later handed over the deeds of her house, Scher saying that h§ would raise a mortgage on them. In the box Scher said that he had been made bankrupt for about £179,000. He declared that Miss Faragher wanted to speculate, and that he offered'to use his best endeavours to make the best profit with her capital. • Deputy Inspector Freshney said that Scher had been sentenced in offering shares to the public which did not comply with the Companies Act. His wife was now believed to be living in Dublin. , “ In 1928 Scher was in business at Finsbury as a wholesale draper,” the officer continued, “ ostensibly as manager for his wife. This business failed and his wife was adjudicated bankrupt for about £ 16,000. In 1930 he was in Paris associating with suspected share-pushers.” Scher was a very plausible individual. The police had received a complaint from a schoolmaster at Finchley, who lost £ 1000, and there were people in Ireland who had lost money, but they did not wish to take action. ~ _ Sentencing Scher, the Common Serjeant, Mr Cecil Whiteley. K.C., remarked: “I have seldom listened to a more heartless and callous fraud.” .