From the Devon and Exeter Gazette, Friday 11th July 1930:-
A series of ingenious frauds worked through the advertisement columns of a periodical was disclosed at the petty sessions, when Charles Richard Eastoe, of no fixed abode, was charged with obtaining by false pretences 22s from William Rowe, Pontypridd; 20s from Frank Willis, of Cheltenham; and 33s 6d from John Henry Sanders, of Bartholomew Street, Newbury, all about May 15th. Eastoe pleaded guilty to each charge, and also asked that 16 other similar cases in various parts of the country be taken into account. He was sent to prison for four months, with hard labour, on each charge – 12 months in all.