A DEGENERATE.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2523, 9 June 1909, Page 5

A DEGENERATE.

PEER’S NEPHEW'SENT TO GAOL

FOR FORGERY.

[Per Press Association.]

AUCKLAND, June 8. In the Supreme. Court to-day, James H. McClure, nephew of the late Lord dvertoun, was charged with having on the 14th April, 1909, obtained £lO by false pretences from John Thomas Turner. . The circumstances of the case were, simple, and, •as the Crown .prosecutor remarked, of a kind quite common. The prisoner went into a clothier’s shop and asked Turner whether he had enough money to cash a cheque for £lO. • The cheque was duly cashed, but when presented at the bank two days later it was dishonored. Mr Lundon addressed the jury at some length in opening tho case for the defence. Ho explained that for a considerable, time - accused had been living at the rate of about £25. a week. He was in receipt of a large remittance, which he. spent extravagantly. He had been the owner of a largo plantation in Fiji. He received his last remittance from Lady Overtoufi, who was his aunt. He said that he was 24 years of age, and had drawn from his mother’s estate some £I4OO since January, 190 S. The accused gave a dotailed account of his doings during the last four or five years. He admitted having been imprisoned in Hobart for uttering a valueless cheque. When ho cashed the cheque with Turner he thought lie had the money in tlie bank to meet it. Tlie jury returned a verdict of guilty, and the prisoner was sentenced to imprisonment for 12 months.