Posts Tagged ‘Thai-Burma Railway’
Fake prisoner of war claimed $464,000 in pension payments
Absent friends…
The former public face of Australian prisoners of war will spend Christmas behind bars after admitting his war service claim was a lie.
Arthur “Rex” Crane, 84, posed as a World War II veteran for 22 years and achieved a national profile as Australian president of the Ex-Prisoners of War Association until he was outed by a military historian who believed his story did not add up. During that time, Crane successfully claimed $464,409 in war pension and disability payments, which he was not entitled to receive.
He pleaded guilty in Brisbane’s District Court last month and was yesterday sentenced to four years in jail, of which he will serve six months.
The court heard Crane developed the false war story to fit in with actual veterans he was working alongside in a country pub in the 1960s. Within a few years, Crane had convinced everyone, from doctors to his own family.
Crane explained his lack of documentation by claiming he was a boy guerilla, conscripted by the British while living with his parents in Malaya in the 1940s.
He claimed he was then captured by the Japanese, tortured and sent to work on the notorious Thai-Burma Railway alongside 13,000 other Australian POWs.
But Crane’s story came undone during a speech to veterans last year when historian Lynette Silver found his story unbelievable. Within a month, the historian found documents showing Crane had been enrolled at an Adelaide school during his supposed imprisonment…
The historian yesterday said she was “astounded” the Department of Veterans Affairs failed to identify such a blatant fraud…
Crane has been ordered to repay the money, although it is unlikely the sum will ever be recovered.
This speaks volumes about acceptable lies, lies which qualify a fraud automatically as so deserving that no one ever checks to verify the tale.
