FALSE PRETENCES.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 61, Issue 75, 9 January 1941, Page 6

FALSE PRETENCES.

GUILTY ON TWO CHARGES.

SENTENCE IF CALLED UPON

(Per Press Association).

CHRISTCHURCH, This Day

In the Magistrate’s Court yesterday, before Mr E. C. Levvey, S.M., -Harold Price, an electrician, aged 33 (Mr E. S. Bowie), pleaded guilty to two charges of false pretences. It was alleged that on November 13 last be obtained £lO 15s in money from John Watt with an invalid cheque drawn on the Union Bank of Australia at Ashburton in his own name; also that lie obtained board worth £4 and £1 in money from Watt, with a similar cheque. Detective-Sergeant J. McClung said that Price had a pie parlour-in Ashburton which he was forced to give up. The bank advised him that there was a small sum left to- his credit, and he drew a cheque for nearly all of that and came to Christchurch, to the Foresters’ Hotel/ where he .presented the two cheques named in the charges to the licensee. These were subequently returned by the bank as valueless.

Price had gone to Wellington, and there been convicted on a third charge of the same nature to which lie had pleaded guilty. He was -now serving a term of one month’s imprisonment for that conviction. « Mr Bowie said that his client was a married man with young children. He could make full restitution immediately, and his employer in Wellington thought so highly of him that he wished to take him on again the moment he came out of gaol. Price had been on drinking bouts each time he had presented worthless cheques, and undoubtedly these had been the cause of the trouble. A prohibition order could be taken out and that question would be solved.

When the Magistrate asked what Price’s employment in Wellington would be, Mr Bowie said that he would be a barman, but ho understood that Price never drank on the job. The Magistrate said that Price could not have a prohibition order and be a barman.

The accused was convicted and ordered to come up for sentence if called on within two years, with a condition that restitution of £ls 15s is made within 14 days.