A FORGED CHEQUE.

Wairarapa Age, 22 December 1932, Page 3

A FORGED CHEQUE.

[ EXPLOIT OF AN ESCAPED PRISONER. [ COMMITTED FOB SENTENCE. 1 WELLINGTON, December 21. > Frederick William Schluter, described [ as an engineer, aged 42, the man who , escaped from Mount Eden Prison early [ this year, pleaded guilty in the Magisi trate’s Court to-day to forging and uttering a cheque for £9O and two charges of theft. The offences were committed while the accused was at liberty. , Mrs F. E. Meiklejohn, a boardingi house-keeper at 231, The Terrace, said that in July last the accused came to her house under the name of Fogden. He said he had no money, but showed her a Post Office Savings Bank book showing a credit of £52 odd. On July 11 witness asked the accused to mend her handbag, which was broken. Tn the handbag was witness’s cheque book. The next day the accused obtained a specimen of witness’s writing and signature by getting her to write a letter to the City Council in reference to the hot water system in her house. On July 21, witness discovered that a cheque for £9O had gone through, her I account. The signature on the cheque | produced was practically identical with | her own writing. The accused left her house on July 13. David 'Spence, a teller at the Commercial Bank, said that on July 13 the cheque produced was presented to him. It had previously been examined by the ledgerkeeper, who had passed it, and witness gave the man seventeen £5 notes and five £1 notes. Witness could not identify the man who cashed the cheque. He considered the signature on the cheque was a very good imitation of Airs Meiklejohn’s signature. Detective N\ J. McPhee said that when Schluter was interviewed at the detective office after he had been recaptured he said that he wanted to clear everything up, and he made a statement in which he admitted taking two blank cheque forms from Mrs Meiklejohn's book when he was mending her handbag. He had bought a motor bicycle with some of the money, and he had played pakapoo with the remainder, winning £B2. He had stolen the property mentioned in the theft charges from other places where he had stayed while in Welliifgton. The accused pleaded guilty and was committed to the Supreme Court for sentence.

On a charge of being an incorrigible rogue in that he escaped from Mount Eden Prison he was remanded to appear at Auckland, and for two offences against tho Arms Act in connection with unregistered rifles, committed in 1929, he was convicted and discharged. MP.A.)