Nine months later…
Things didn’t end there for Thomas. Nine months later in April of 1925, he was charged with three counts of wilful corrupt perjury.
The charges arose from him swearing ‘falsely’ to banking particulars in the I.O.U chancery case.
The court accused Thomas of having had banking accounts prior to 1902, contrary to what he had sworn at the time. It was accused that he had infact had three different banking accounts and a total of £13,900 had been banked between them, and that he had knowingly given false statements in the Chancery Court the previous year.
Thomas pleaded not guilty.
Reported evidence from the defence – Thomas’s explanation
“Defendant went into the witness-box this morning, and in evidence said that on February 5th, 1925, he swore an affidavit in the Chancery action which contained an accurate record of his business relationships between himself and his step-father, and which fully accounted for his trading up to 1902. After that he continued the business on his own account.
Mr. Lustgarten (for the defense): How came you say in the Chancery Court that you had no banking account before 1902?
Defendant (Thomas):” Through inquiries I made at the London City and Midland Bank. I went to see Mr. Harris, the manager, who took me to his private room. I asked him if the account in my name commenced before 1902. He left the room and a little later a young lady came in and said the answer was “No”. I then went across to Mr. Ambler’s office and gave him that information.”
Witness said that until the certified copies of his banking account were produced he thought the information given to him at the Midland Bank was true.
Since that disclosure he had never denied that he had those accounts, but at the first hearing on May 1st last when he was questioned about what happened over twenty years before, he honestly thought those accounts were opened later. He now knew that accounts were opened in 1898 at the Midland Bank and at the District Bank on the same day, one for £2,000 and the other for £3,000.
“These moneys,” continued defendant “came from Mr. Nixon and Mr. Wilson. After they had found the money I suggested that I knew a gentleman who wanted to go in for buying yeomanry horses, and that was likely to be a good business”. They found further sums afterwards for the same purpose. It was Mr. Thomas Heskin’s business he was referring to. After he got the money he made inquiries of Mr. Heskin, who told him he was not ready to go into it. The money was therefore allowed to sit in the bank for a considerable time, and subsequently the money was repaid to the people he had obtained it from. The money was handed him chiefly in notes and not by cheque and it was repaid cash. Some time later he guaranteed Heskin’s banking account.
With reference to the mortgage on the Grand Junction Hotel, defendant stated that it was negotiated with the late Mr. R Ascroft whom he saw almost daily. When he was first asked in the Chancery Court about this mortgage the question was whether he had lent £3,000 on it in 1902, and he said it was false. The mortgage was, in fact, made in 1904 and added to in 1906. He had not intended to say he had never entered into the mortgage at all. Throughout the whole of the trial, he had never intended to mislead the court, and at the time he believed his statements were true.
Jury’s decision
The prosecution continued to cross examine Thomas about his memories of the bank accounts in question, referring to shorthand notes from the previous Chancery trial as evidence that Thomas had intentionally tried to deceive the court, so that a further look into his accounts would be avoided.
At the end of evidence it went to a jury to decide whether Thomas was guilty of intentionally making false statements about his bank accounts, which was material to the case in the Chancery Court.
“Defendants demeanour that day… must have satisfied the jury that he was not the type of man who was capable of the diabolical clever scheme of deceit alleged against him, but was rather the sort of man who would be easily confused and led to give answers which might be mistaken and misunderstood.” Mr. Lustgarten
After a retirement of twenty minutes, the jury returned with a verdict of guilty. Thomas was sentenced to nine months in jail and was ordered to pay the costs of the prosecution.
After the unfortunate events of 1924-1925, Thomas retired comfortably in Blackpool with his wife Diana until his death in 1950 aged seventy-seven. He had no children of his own but was step-father to Henry and Marie Emma Haydock Marriott. Thomas left his estate totalling £54516, to his widowed sister Mary Alice Heap (nee Maudsley).
Sources & Further Reading
- License Transferal – Preston Chronicle – Saturday 08 June 1878
- Article in the LEP Tuesday, 2nd October 2018, titled “Last Orders – Looking back at Preston’s long lost public houses”
- British Newspaper Archive
- Red Rose Collections
- Ancestry
- Lancashire Record Office