BOGUS" ANZACS."

Star (Christchurch), Issue 11594, 12 January 1916, Page 5

BOGUS" ANZACS."

"SWANKER "-SWINDLER BOWLED OUT. MISTAKEN MAGISTERIAL LENIENCY [From Our Cohrespcndext.] LONDON, December 7. T3)o unauthorised wearing of military and naval uniforms, coupled with the swindling of hatolkwpers, tradesmen and others, ought, to be at this present juncture an offence calling for the most drastic punishment. Our dispensers or justice, however, do not :is a rule seem to appreciate the gravity of this particular class of offence in war-time, and more often than not only award to offenders sentences which they would not hesitate to givo to persons guilty of minor thefts. The result is that not only London, hut all England, js ..a overran with men in uniforms which they have no right whatever to wear. Somo don them to gratify a peculiar form of vanity only, hut the majority have an eye to other things than_ were "swanking," as the records of our police courts conclusively prove week after week. "Swank" and swindling usually run in harness, hut now and then the unauthorised uniform wearers have had more sinister designs, than the mere cheating of tradesmen, and have been proved to have worn them in order to facilitate their efforts to obtain information from hona fide .soldiers. At the present time the Australian and New Zealand uniforms appear to be unduly favoured by ''swankers." swindlers and the like, and the bogus j " Dardanelles hero" is very much in evidence in the Old Country. One wasi bowled out a few days ago. This was Eric Douglas Graddon, who found himself charged at Westminster Police Court with being an unauthorised person, wearing a military uniform with inteut to deceive; further, with falsely representing himself as belonging to the Australian contingent. A detective said prisoner, staying with a lady who was not his wife, had run up an account of over £25 at the hotel at Westminster, where they were staying. Prisoner's usual attire was the slouch hat, slacks and overcoat of Australian pattern. When arrested and told the charge, Graddon said: "It is quite right. I've no right to wear tno uniform." SERVED IN SOUTH AFRICA/ Prisoner's counsel said accused was wearing civilian clothes, displaying a war ribbon he was entitled to wear for service in South Africa, and urged that

his client had no intention to deceive. "But," said the detective, "wo know that this man lias got into conversation with men of the Australian contingent and asked, questions about officers, troops and munitions. Probably in the belief that he was a soldier, lie would learn more than a. civilian. ! V Captain Brown, Acting-Assistant Provost Marshal of the Australian and New Zealand Forces, said that prisoner informed him that he twice enlisted in Australia, and in each instance was discharged as medically 1 unfit. Having failed out there, prisoner declared that he worked his passage to England as a civilian cook. At this stage of the proceedings, the detective in charge of the case said a chance witness in Court, on other business, had identified accused. WHAT THE "TEC" SAW. Dective Gillard, the unexpected witness,, who was attending the Court with regard to Army dependents' fraud cases, said that early in September he was staying at the 'White Hart Hotel at Brighton, and he there saw prisoner, who as the invalid husband of i! ,i big, »;flashily dressed woman." Graddon, who was wearing khaki clothes, gave out that he had been " knocked out'' in the Dardanelles by a wound in the stomach, but Detective Gillard was sceptical at the time, as accused was " pretty active in the billiard room." Graddon, in his evidence on oath, admitted that he was at the hotel at Brighton, but denied the story of the Dardanelles, stating that he only said that he had been kicked in the stomach by a horse. He had served, he stated, in Paget's Hor.se in South Africa, and on the .outbreak of the present war he enlisted at Sydney, but was discharged as medically unfit- As a matter of fact he made two attempts to serve whilst in Australia, and on the second occasion ho received his discharge when he had become sergeant in the Light Horse. He was perfectly willing to enlist now if they would take hm. But the Army Jms no particular use for men of Graddon s kidney, and, anyhow,, he won't be available for the next four months, that being the term of imprisonment a very lenient magistrate apparently considers a punishment to fit this swindling " swaukers" crime. Such a sentence appeals to men who know the. real mischief tin's class of person has done, is doing, and will continue to do, as being an example of mischievous magisterial leniency. Something stiff in the way of sentences with a dose of the "cat" at the commencement and the finish thereof, would be more appropriate. J^