Life Savings Stolen By Woman

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 547, 27 December 1928, Page 6

Life Savings Stolen By Woman

Promised Victims High Rate of Interest PRISON FOR TEARFUL DRAPER “This is a mean sort o£ fraud, and in some instances people have parted with their life savings. The public must be protected, and you will undergo 21 months’ hard labour.” These remarks were passed by Mr. Cecil Whiteley, K.C., at London Sessions, in dealing with Mrs. Kathleen (or Isabel)* Moore, 43, credit draper, of Upper Grove, South Norwood, who pleaded guilty to 11 charges of false pretences and fraudulent conversion, involving a total sum of £326. She also admitted 18 other charges, and these were taken into consideration in her sentence. Detective-Sergeant Muir stated that in 1919 the woman commenced to carry out a series of frauds on an extensive scale from an address at Catford. She then represented that she was purchasing a profitable moneylending business, and induced people to invest money under the promise of receiving a high rate of interest. Prisoner gained their confidence by paying certain sums as interest, and afterwards obtained larger advances. Altogether she got £6,000, and in 1921 was made a bankrupt. Previously Moore had obtained about £3,000 from 50 people by similar means, and at Greenwich she was sentenced to six months’ imprisonment After he release she removed to Hastings, and later opened a successful boarding house at East Cliff, Dover. She, however, got into debt and obtained cash and securities, worth £1,500, from people in her employ, and the bailiffs took possession. In 1922 Moore was living in Dalston, and there she got £235 from persons by fraud. For these offences she was sentenced at the Old Bailey to 18 months’ hard labour. On her liberation she entered service, and subsequently resided with her husband, her two daughters and a son in Norwood. During 1926 she started a credit drapery business under the style of the London and Provincial Supply Company. Although that business was at first a genuine one. she obtained from managers, collectors and clerks sums aggregating £2,851. Most of the people defrauded parted with their life savings, and prisoner was also heavily in debt to Norwood tradesmen. Mr. Kimber, on the woman’s behalf, urged that it was a most extraordinary case. She had not spent the money on riotous living, in purchasing expensive motor-cars, residing in a luxurious home, or decking herself out in finery. The money had gone in paying the bills of wholesale houses, and in wages and general exnr and in returning securities to former employees. The strange feature was that while she embarked on these frauds she was living with her husband, who was well able to keep her. Sentence was passed, as stated, and the woman left the dock crying bitterly.