War Contracts Frauds
'Heavy, but .merited; sentences were passed at Liverpool Assizes on Roland Clare, Mills and others concerned in the colossal frauds in connexion with war contracts entered into by the firm of F. H. Porter, Ltd.—nine years' penal servitude for Clare with a fine of £io,000, and three years' penal servitude for Mills. The worst offender of all, Porter himself, had only escaped the law by shooting himself when the police were inquiring into the fraud. Clare is a Liverpool City Councillor, Mills was senior inspecting officer under the Ministry of War Transport. These persons, men in highly responsible positions, contrived, with their associates, to defraud the public of sums of money totalling hundreds of thousands of pounds. The main conspirators, Porter and Clare, succeeded in drawing their accomplices into a network of fraud and crime in which they became inextricably involved—and in which the very questionable " cost-plus " system figured largely. Undoubtedly the improvisations of war-work commissioned on the largest scale lend themselves to exploitation and fraud in a way that would not be possible in peace- time, and it is disturbing to think that these nefarious transactions might have evaded detection, and that many others no doubt have.
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