WOMAN'S CAREER OF FRAUD.

Western Star, 10 September 1935, Page 3

WOMAN'S CAREER OF FRAUD.

■ <s> HUNTED BY POLICE FOR OVER' FOUR VEARS.. “SHE HAD SUCH CHARMING MANNERS.” Many people in Holloway and Finsbury Park, London, wondered for some time what happened, to Mrs. Evelyn Hall. The neighbourhood, knew her well —and liked her. She had such charming manners and was so generous. She went to church regularly every Sunday and hardly ever missed the morning service on the wireless. She lived in a fla t in Islington Road, Finsbury Park, for over twelve months, and had lived at other flats in the district for some years. Shopkeepers in the whole neighbourhood remarked occasionally that they wished everybody was like Mrs Hall, for she paid her accounts promptly and was never “fussy.” Mrs Hall is now in Holloway Prison, where she was sent for a term of three years’ penal servitude and five years’ preventive detention from the Old Bailey. She was sentenced in the name of Florence Page. She had been hunted by the police of the entire country for more than four years. NEARLY THREE HUNDRED CHARGES. . Her photograph had appeared regularly in the Police Gazette accompanied by a steadily growing list of the frauds she had committed on unsuspecting shopkeepers. When she was finally tracked down in May there were 297 charges against her. Mrs Hall, whom Finsbury Park- respected so much, used to take almost daily trips to other towns. There she would walk into a shop, explain that her convalescent daughter wag in. need of new dothes, give a perfectly genuine name (presumably picked from the street directory), and leave, with the goods on approval. She never visited the same town twice. During the week she was arrested she had made her calls in Oxford, Slough, Gravesend and Tottenham, and her haul included coats, dresses and jewellery.

SO OPEN-HANDED. "She would come home most evenings with her arms full of parcels," he r landlord said." Many a time she would give away to callers and friends gifts of all descriptions— from handbags and purses to cameras and door-knock-ers. We occasionally saw her leaving in the mornings with a suitcase or handbag. '•Mrs.. Hall was never short of ready casn. She had explained to me a long tune ago that she was a widow with independent means. She had sold up a business in Liverpool, she said, and was able to live on the interest from the money she had in the bank. She was liberal with her presents—sh e forgot none of her friends at Christmas or on birthday—and her rent was always jwiid i n advance. "No letters ever came for her, for she told us lier correspondence went to an office iii the ca'ty. She was connected with several charitable organisations,"

THE GIRL IN THE TEAM-CAR It is known that she had carried out frauds on shopkeepers in Guildford, Rochester, St. Albans, Egham, Staines, Working and Windsor.' Once she went on a holiday to the seaside. Her holiday left behind a trail if frau'dentiy obtained goods from shopkeepers in Brighton Southend, Ramsgato, Margate Southport, Blackpool, Liverpool and other places. Distance was no object to Mrs. Evelyn Hall. She might still hav c been, preying on .society had it not been for one of those chances tha t not even the smartest crook can contend with. Her last "job" was to obtain two coats from a Tottenham shop. A few weeks later, in Finsbury Park, she got on a tram-car and sat opposite the very girl who served he r with the coats on approval. . The police even now do not know her real name. They believe (but even this is not certain)* that she was born in Tollbridge, Kent; though she herself often suicl she was the daughter of a stationiuaster in the north of England.