BUTCHER FINED.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 65, Issue 154, 12 April 1945, Page 4

BUTCHER FINED.

BREACH OF RATIONING REGULATIONS. (P.A.) INVERCARGILL, April 11. Pleading guilty in the Magistrate’s Court to-day to eight breaches of the Rationing Emergency Regulations, John Maxwell Winders, a butcher, was fined a total of £6O. He was charged with making untrue statements in signed certificates concerning the number of meat coupons in envelopes in which coupons were deposited with the bank. The police said that butchers were required to deposit coupons exchanged for meat in certain envelopes. They were also required to detail the number and value of the coupons on the certificate attached to the envelope. The lank where they wore lodged gave a credit slip for the coupons and the subsequent allocation of meat was based on the credit slips. In October a check was made on the number of coupons deposited, but the envelopes contained fewer coupons than the number and value shown on the certificates. It was also noticed that some of the coupons were not those of current availability. The value of the shortage was £57 12s representing about 20001 b of meat.

For defendant, Mr Moller said he realised that he had placed himself in a serious position not by an active intention of dishonesty but by the foolish methods he had adopted in counting coupons. The necessity of counting thousands of coupons a month was something which had taken up a great deal of his time, and he had hit upon the idea of Weighing an envelope with a certain number of coupons. Thereafterinstead of counting he weighed the coupons rrd checked them, against the weight of the first envelope. Unfortunately he had not taken into consideration the different sizes of the coupons. Further, the time question entered into the matter, and he entrusted much of the work to his 13-year-old son.