Mock Auctions — Legal or Illegal?
| Date | 01 May 1961 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0032258X6103400302 |
| Published date | 01 May 1961 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
DETECTIVE
CHIEF
INSPECTOR
F.
HAMMOND
Lancashire Constabulary
Moek
Auetions
-
Legal
or
Illegal
?
With the holiday season again upon us, the following article is
of
special topical interest. The detailed account which the author gives
of
measures taken against this particularly mean type
of
offence will
be valuable to officers concerned withprotecting the public against it.
How
OFTEN has this question been posed by police officers in
districts where these auctions are conducted?
How
often has it
exercised the minds
of
Members
of
Parliament, local government
officials and others who, in an endeavour to minimize complaints,
have sought legislation to control them, to give local authorities the
power to license mock auctions and to provide some degree of
supervision over them?
The Law
Based upon the findings of a select committee set up in 1920 when
such a Billwas introduced in the House of Lords, Private Members'
Bills have been successfully resisted by Parliament. The committee
came to the conclusion
that
the existing law was sufficiently strong
to enable criminal proceedings to be taken for obtaining, or attempt-
ing to obtain money by false pretences, against auctioneers who
wittingly misdescribe their wares. The fact that mock auctioneers
were seldom prosecuted was attributable, not to the inadequacy
of
the law, but to the reluctance
of
persons defrauded to give evidence.
Successful prosecutions have, however, been previously taken for
conspiracy to defraud. R. v. Lewis
and
others at the Manchester
Winter Assize, December 12, 1869 (11 Cox's Criminal Cases 404), at
the Old Bailey in 1928, and recently at the Bournemouth quarter
sessions in January
and
August, 1960. Although successful suits
would appear to be few, they nevertheless support the findings
of
the
select committee, that, in the main, the running
of
mock auctions is
in fact criminal. Is this comparatively rare prosecution rate indi-
cative
of
the view
that
police officers are not being fully informed
of
what actually takes place at such auctions? This may well be the
reason because, during recent investigations into the running
of
mock auctions at two distinct premises in Morecambe, a seaside
resort in Lancashire, facts were disclosed which lead one to believe
that
the casual holidaymaker, entering these premises for the first
152 May-June 1961
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