SCHEMER, IMPOSTOR, MALINGERER

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 89, Issue 96, 24 April 1945, Page 5

SCHEMER, IMPOSTOR, MALINGERER

MAN WHO SAID HE WAS ADRIFT ON RAFT Recd. 8.15 p.m. Sydney. April 23 Found naked outside a farmhouse at Bombo, New South Wales on April .12, Bernard Hudson Matheson, aged 20, a 'labourer who told a sensational story of being adrift on a raft for four weeks, was sentenced to-day to three months goal for vagrancy. | Police serge..ni V. J. smith describ- ' ed Matheson as a cunning schemer, malingerer ami imposter. Matheson, I when found at Bombo, claimed he was a New Zealand sailor, Laurence Johnson, of Manaia, Taranaki. He said his ship, on which he was a navai gunner, had been wrecked in the Coral Sea, and he had drifted down the Australian coast on a raft. Later, he informed the police he had fabricated this story in an endeavour to get to New Zealand. A police witness said it had been ascertained that Matheson had left his employment in Victoria with £5 in his pocket, on Christmas Eve. Since then he had been to Alice Springs and Queensland, as well as twice to forward operational bases, which lie reached by posing as a member of the military. Once lie had represented himself as a lieutenant, and obtained air transport. He had also received treatment in military hospitals under various names, and had been discharged from a military I hospital only the day before he was ■found at Bombo. Matheson had been I examined by doctors, who were unable ito find anything wrong with his rnenItality. An Army witness said Matheson had enlisted three times, and deserted twice. He was discharged from the Army on account of his conduct.