AN&MEF BEM CONVICTED FRAUDSTER WW1 AUSTRALIAN NEW GUINEA MEDALS 247 L MONTEFIORE

Offered is a medal group to Leonard Montefiore, who served in the 1st Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Force in 1914 in Rabaul, fighting the German forces, later being convicted of insurance fraud and in 1978 receiving a British Empire Medal for services to the veterans & the community

1914 – 15 Star, impressed named 247 PTE L.R. MONTEFIORE. 1/A.N & M.E.F.; British War Medal, impressed named 247 PTE L.R. MONTEFIORE. 1/A.N. &M.E.F.; Victory Medal impressed named 247 L.R. MONTEFIORE. Swing mounted as worn; Princess Mary gift tin; rising sun collar badge and AUSTRALIA brass shoulder title. Comes with copies of service record and newspaper articles.

Leonard Roy Montefiore was born on the 29/10/1892 in Sydney, New South Wales. An insurance manager by trade, he enlisted into the 1^st Battalion Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Force and was assigned as a Private to ‘B’ Company on the 11/8/1914. He stated that he had previous service with the New Zealand Militia serving as a Lieutenant with the Wellington University Reserve of Officers and as a Lieutenant with the Wellington Rifles 1909 -1911.

The Battalion embarked on HMAS Berrima (Transport ship) for training at Palm Island, Queensland, on 19/8/1914. After 2 weeks of training the unit departed for Port Moresby 7/9/1914, troops from HMAS Berrima occupying Rabaul on 12 September. By the 19 September he was charged (at Rabaul) and awarded 7 days Field Punishment and loss of pay. He discharged on the 4/3/1915 ‘time expired’.

He re-joined the A.I.F on the 3/6/1915 but was medically discharged 17/7/1915. He returned to the insurance business becoming the Queensland Manager of Ocean Accident and Guarantee Corporation, but in 1931 he and his brother Stanley Robert Montefiore were convicted of fraud after a length court case involving dodgy insurance claims and received 2 years imprisonment. The company had lost some 45,000 pounds over the 11 years that Leonard was the manager.

He was awarded the British Empire Medal (B.E.M.) Civil division in 1978 for services to veterans and the community and died in Sydney in 1984.