IMPOSTOR GAOLED

Waipa Post, Volume XXIV, Issue 1575, 18 November 1924, Page 5

IMPOSTOR GAOLED

PRETENDS TO BE DEAF AND DUMB

(By Telegraph. Press Association.) AUCKLAND, Monday.

"This man is a parasite imposing upon the good nature of others," said Mr J. W. Poynton this morning, in sentencing Henry Patrick Moor (35) to 12 months' imprisonment upon a charge of imposing upon a lady by a certain false pretence.

Moor pleaded guilty. Detective Meiklejohn, called by the Chief Detective, said that owing- to complaints received about a man calling at houses and pretending that he was deaf and dumb, he interviewed the accused. The latter admitted he had been selling a disinfectant, and that upon making a house call he would produce a small book in which was written a long statement setting out that he (Moor) was deaf and dumb, that this infirmity had been brought about by the war, also that he was a married man with a wife and three children. When he first began to sell the disinfectant his earnings were 5s or 6s a week, but when he imposed upon people by pretending to be deaf and dumb his earnings reached 18s and 20s' a day.

Chief Detective Cummings: I have known this man about 15 years. He is another of those who get hold of something that costs about a halfpenny and sells it for 3s or 4s. He has a long list of convictions for various offences.

His Worship: It is a shame that a man should impose upon people in this way. Twelve months.