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Originally Posted by Gramrugby

Originally Posted by Wikipedia}Francis Percy Toplis (22 August 1896 – 6 June 1920) was a British criminal and imposter active during and after the First World War. Before the war he was imprisoned for attempted rape. During the war he served as a private in the Royal Army Medical Corps, but regularly posed as an officer while on leave, wearing a monocle. After the war he became notorious following the murder of a taxi driver and the wounding of a police officer who attempted to apprehend him. The manhunt was major news at the time. He was tracked down and killed in a gunfight with police.

In 1978 a book was published which claimed that he had a big part in the Étaples Mutiny from 9–12 September 1917, as "The Monocled Mutineer". The authors suggested that he was pursued by the political establishment in a vendetta and may have been innocent of the murder. The book was dramatised by the BBC in 1986 as The Monocled Mutineer, creating considerable controversy.

Critics say that there is no evidence he was present and that official records show that Toplis's unit was en route to India during the Étaples mutiny. However, the official records that are often cited to refute claims that Toplis took part in the Mutiny have been extrapolated from a summary of his movements that appear in a letter addressed to the Chief Constable of Hampshire Police from Superintendent James L. Cox.[1