FALSE REPRESENTATION

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 79, Issue 59, 12 March 1935, Page 7

FALSE REPRESENTATION

MONEY FOR SPACE. CANVASSER IN TROUBLE. A series of successful attempts to obtain money from retailers and others by false representation was revealed in the Wanganui Magistrate's Court yesterday, when Francis Charles Blackley, a siingle man, aged 36, pleaded guilty to six charges of false pretences and one of obtaining credit by fraud. Detective-Sergeant J. Walsh, who appeared for the police, said that Blackley began his offences in Otaki, and moved from town to town offering to obtain advertising space in a map directory and collecting sums of money from those whom he visited. In addition to the occasions referred to in the charges, accused had obtained credit by the same system 9 times at El'tham, 9 at Marton, 15 at Feilding, 10 at Foxton, 18 at Levin and!2 at Otaki. As well as the amounts mentioned in the charges he had obtained from the various towns £l5 10s. The charge of obtaining credit by fraud arose from the accused staying at an hotel in Hawera and leaving without paying his board, which amounted to £4 9s. The charges were that accused had obtained 15s from a person in Otaki, 12s 6d from another in Levin, 7s 6d from Foxton, 17s 6d from Feilding, 12 s 6d from Marton and 10s from Eltham. Accused said that he had been started out by a Wellington firm to sell space on a map directory. He found, after he had gone a little way, that his expenses were amounting to more than his commission, so he had endeavoured to make up the loss. The magistrate remanded the accused