ALLEGED COUNTERFEIT NOTE

Taranaki Daily News, 12 January 1932, Page 7

ALLEGED COUNTERFEIT NOTE

CHARGE LAID IN AUCKLAND. HATTER REMANDED A WEEK. By Telegraph.—Press Association. Auckland, Jan. 11. As a sequel to the discovery by the police •on Saturday of 500 allegedly counterfeit £1 notes a man named Harry Dawson, aged 48, a hatter, was charged in the Police'Court with uttering a forged note and being in unlawful possession of one. He was remanded for a week, the police saying that a lot of inquiries have to be made. SHOP GIRL’S PROMPT ACTION. AN ARREST QUICKLY FOLLOWS. A quick-witted shop girl and a smart police constable were instrumental on Saturday in causing the arrest of the man who is alleged to have uttered a counterfeit bank-note. Importance attaches to the incident because the was said to be identical with those which were circulated between Auckland and Hamilton on April 24 of last year. A police search of lodgings in the city later revealed the existence of 500 .allegedly spurious £1 notes. It is. stated that a man walked into a fancy goods shop in Karangahape ‘Road at 11.30 a.m. on Saturday and proffered the.girl assistant a note which she regarded with suspicion. It was thought to be a £1 Bank of New South Wales note, numbered E 913,885, and as the girl, in company with the employees of the majority of city firms, had been warned that such notes were in circulation ever since the counterfeit note scare of last year, she examined it carefully and showed it to a male assistant, who confirmed her suspicion. POLICE SERVICES ENLISTED. The girl declined to accept the note, whereupon the man produced another note, which was accepted. No sooner had he left the shop than the male assistant ran out and enlisted the services of the nearest policeman, Constable Kimberley, of Newton, -who was standing at the Pitt Street corner. The man had by that time walked away, but the shop assistant was able to give the constable a description of him. An important clue was the statement that he had entered the shop leading a four-year-old girl by the hand and had passed over the pound note in payment for a toy perambulator for the child. “The little girl is dressed in a pink frock,” said the shop assistant, as he hurried along Karangahape Road with the constable. They had not proceeded far when they saw the child playing on the footpath outside a dairy. Constable Kimberley, looking through the door, saw a man sitting in a back room of the dairy smoking a cigarette. “Good day,” aaid ,the constable, as he walked in. The man looked up. “You were at a fancy goods shop along the road just now?” “Yes,” replied the man. “Let me see what money you have with you.” NOTES IN TOBACCO TIN. The man turned out his pockets, placing £2 ‘los in notes on the table. One of them was counterfeit. He said it was given to him for change at another shop. He also said he had recently come from the South and was living with friends ?n Karangahape Road. Later in the i? afternoon a search of the lodgings led to the discovery of a tobacco tin in which were tightlypacked 500 counterfeit notes, all bearing the number E 913,885. Eight other spurious notes were found in an envelope. The presence of several forged Bank of New South (Wales notes, all bearing the same number, has been reported in the city during the past month. In every case they had been passed in at different shops and were not detected until afterwards. Last August three men were sentenced at the Supreme Court to terms of imprisonment in connection with uttering forged Bank of New South Wales £1 notes.