LIFE SAVINGS GONE

Waikato Times, Volume 110, Issue 18521, 29 December 1931, Page 4

LIFE SAVINGS GONE

FEMALE SWINDLER. PREYS ’ OX WOMENFOLF. Short, stout, and fresh-complex-ionod, a persistent female swindler, Hcrtha Dawson, 54, housekeeper, was seemingly pleased when, 'at London Sessions, she was ordered a long term of penal servitude on a series of charges of obtaining money by false pretences. Mr J. F. Eastwood, prosecuting, staled that the total amount involved was £426. The woman, he explained, nearly always told her victims the same story. She represented that she had been left property and money under the will or an uncle. One of the conditions was that she should act as a domestic servant for 12 months. Secondly, it was set out that the money of the estate should be used to help anyone who helped her. She also referred to two solicitors in ’Manchester, but, commented counsel, their names did not appear In the Law List.

Dawson, 'on tho strength of her statements, had been gravelling tall over the country ingratiating herself with women of different ages—one of them was very old and another young. She told them she had to buy houses to benefit those who assisted her, and wrote letters purporting to be signed by her solicitors. In her correspondence with her victims she signed herself as

<< Funny Face,” or “Angel Face.”

“ She has been gulling' people in this way continuously since 1916," continue I > 1 1' Eastwood. "She has borrowed money on the promise of repayment when her solicitors paid her her allowance. For these 'Offences she was sentenced at Rotherham to three months’ imprisonment. “In 1916 Dawson posed as a woman of means with a fixed Income, and caused endless trouble, and Scotland Yard notified the police all over England ny a special circular as to the methods of this dangerous, travelling criminal. ‘‘Again, in 1918, at Nuneaton, she was ordered six months’ Imprisonment. She had tlion produced a will saying she had inherited! property in Manchester. In 1926, at Breconshire Quarter Sessions, Dawson was sent to penal servitude for four years for more or less the same sort of fraud, makin°- extravagant promises and stating that she possessed shares In a gold mine. “ Imprisonment has not Iliad tue slightest effect on this woman, who, in some instances, obtained in small sums the entire those she came into contact with. Detective Hare reported that even while on licence, Dawson was perpetrating some of her frauds. One young woman, a Civil Servant, got into her clutches, and, through believing her statements, was at one time in danger of arrest. “ This is a particularly mean class of fraud," observed Mr Cecil Whiteley, KC, to Dawson. " You got mone> from people who could ill afford to lose it. You will go to penal servitude for five years.” “ Thank you, sir," replied Dawson, almost smiling, as two wardresses escorted her to the cells.