Alleged Fraud on Exhaust Device TWO men who invented a
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device 1 which was claimed to purify exhaust gases from • motor vehicles were committed in custody at Wells Street Court, London, on Monday for trial at the Central Criminal Court.
Charged with conspiring with others to defraud, and with uttering a forged docttment, Mr. Frederick E. A. Ridge, 42, and Mr. William B. Amber, 43, both of no fixed abode, pleaded not guilty and reserved their defence.
Mr. M. Worsley, prosecuting, alleged that the defendants pretended the device had good prospects and, relying on what they said, Mr. Peter Akins and • his brother, Cmdr. Anthony Atkins, and a Mr. Peter Ramsey agreed to give finan-, cia I assistance to the proposition. A coin pany was formed, with Ridge as a threetar and he was paid £10 a week retainer, plus expenses. In all he drew I:416. Mr. Worsley further alleged that a document, which purported to be an. encouraging report on. the device by . the Motor Industry Research Association was a
forgery,
Mr. Ramsey, a managing .director's assistant, said he met. Ridge (whom he knew. as Wakefield) in May, 1962, and Ridge claimed to have invented a combined silencer and exhaust gas cleaner. In September of the same year, he (Ramsey) and others acquired Statue() Patents Ltd., with registered offices in I..ondon. The object of the company was to promote a new device, incorporating substantial modifications, to be a silencer only.
At the resumed hearing on Monday (the case started the previous Monday) Detective-sergeant George Fuller said that Ridge told him in July, 1963, that he invented the first device, but there were difficulties with back pressure and Amber designed a much better one.
Detective-sergeant Fuller asked Amber if he was aware that it was on the basis of his enthusiastic reports of the invention that money was advanced. Amber's alleged reply was: "Well, the idea was basically good, but we had no money to develop it. We had to get some finance from somewhere."