DEFALCATIONS AT THE BANK OF VICTORIA.

Auckland Star, Volume VI, Issue 1748, 21 September 1875, Page 3

DEFALCATIONS AT THE BANK OF VICTORIA.

On the 2nd instant, the detectives arrested an official of the Bank of Victoria on a charge which is separate altogether from the recent robbery of notes to the value of from that bank, but it is the belief of the detectives that the prisoner couM give information as to that robbery, and it -was while inquiries into that matter were being effected that discoveries were made which led to the present arrest. The notes were lost off stolen on the 24th ult, and detectives Black and Williams, as two of the most experienced men in the force, were detached to inquire in the affair, which was one promising a field for all their acuteness. Alterations were made in the manner of making up the balance at the bank, and a strict scrutiny was instituted, which led the detectives to tnrn their attention to Richard Whytock Sawers, thereceiving teller. It was found that Sawershas received varioussums of/200, £300, and upwards amountingto£l,4OO, from up-country branches, and that although he had initialed the receipts remaining in the hands of the clerks from whom he received the money, yet he had not entered the receipt in his own cash-book, not paid the money into the bank. On being questioned, he gave no satisfactory account o the money, and was unable to make good thef discrepancy, and as he had been in a position in which he might have abstracted the missing he was questioned on the subject. He however strenuously denied both to the manager and to the detectives that he knew anything of the lost notes. He was detained in the bank on Wednesday afternoon and evening until past midnight, when Detectives Black and Williams arrested him on warrant on a charge of having on the 27th ult., while an officer of the Bank of Victoria, with intent to defraud, omitted to enter a material particular in a book of account, viz., in a teller's cash - book, in which it was his duty to have entered such material particular. He was lodged in the city watchhouse. From some remarks he made after his arrest, it was understood that he had been speculating. Later in the morning the detectives thoroughly searched the prisoner's house in Drummond street, Carlton, but only discovered in sovereigns, Sawers was taken before the City Bench, yesterday, and remanded for seven days- without any evidence being given—Mr Daly, who appeared for him, making no objection. Sawers is thirty-four years old, has a wife and five children, had been twelve years in the service of the bank, and is said to be the next on the list for promotion. ;£l4°° is the amount of the sums at present unaccounted for. As this case so far throws no decided light upon the robbery of notes, the detectives will of course continue their enquiries into the latter affair.