Fake POW to spend Christmas in jail

AN ELDERLY man will spend Christmas in jail after posing as a prisoner of war for 22 years and claiming almost $700,000 in veterans' pensions.Arthur Rex Crane, 84, pleaded guilty of defrauding the Commonwealth and obtaining financial advantage by deception in the Brisbane District Court and was ordered to spend six months in jail.Crane had been on the highest level of service pension since 1988 and is a former-federal president of the Prisoners of War Association of Australia.He was ousted as a fraud in October last year after it was revealed he had lied about being captured by the Japanese in 1942 and imprisoned in Singapore's Outram Road jail. It appears Mr Crane was an Adelaide schoolboy at the time.Judge Marshall Irwin said Crane's fraud showed scant regard to the real POWs and to the memory of those killed at the hands of their captors.Sentencing him, Judge Irwin said he accepted Crane had lived in a fantasy world where he yearned to be considered a hero."The motivation for your deception was not greed but need in the sense of achieving and maintaining hero status," he said."In perpetrating this fraud ... you have shown little respect for those injured and who died in service of their country."Last year Crane was invited to Ballarat to speak at the fifth anniversary of the Ballarat ex-POW Memorial. Memorial trustee Les Kennedy told The Courier last year he was disgusted when he found out Mr Crane was a fraud. "He came to the fifth anniversary as the federal president of the POW association," Mr Kennedy said. "I was absolutely disgusted and find it hard to believe someone would have the gall to mix between the POW sufferers who have suffered so much and pretend to be one of them. "The sad part about it now is his wife and family have got to live with that for the rest of their lives."He has been sentenced to four years' jail, but will be released on a good behaviour bond after six months. He has also been ordered to repay $413,869, which is still outstanding, but due to Crane's age Judge Irwin conceded the full amount would never be recouped.