Looking Back: Alleged False Pretences

At Kilcullen (Co Kildare) in an adjourned hearing of a charge against a man named Vihart of having obtained £18 from Mrs Sheila Blacker by false pretences, Mrs Blacker said he called at Kinneagh on November 15th and said her husband was an old school fellow of his at Harrow.

She and he had lunch and he told her he had been discharged from the army as medically unfit, and had been staying at Ross's Hotel in Dublin, where he owed a bill. He added that he was in financial difficulties and was anxious to go to London that night to see his agents, Messrs Cozinmore and Attroyd, when he expected to get money for property in the Argentine. He asked for a loan, and she gave him £18, which he promised to pay back on the Saturday following. He also gave her a receipt, but she never got the money back or any portion of it.

A witness from Ross's Hotel said no such person stayed there in November, and a confidential clerk of Messrs Cozinmore and Attroyd, London, stockbrokers, said the firm had never been accused's agent.

The hearing was adjourned.

— Freeman's Journal 19.05.1917

(Credit to Dave Byrne for trawling through the old newspapers for references to and about Kilcullen.)

Photographs use Policy — Privacy Policy