BRIBING AN OFFICIAL.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXII, Issue 147, 22 June 1901, Page 5 (Supplement)

BRIBING AN OFFICIAL.

A BUTCHER FINED £500.

Ou May 3rd, before the Recorder, London, Johu Joseph Wulker, wholesale butcher, pleaded "Uullty" to an iudlettuent which charged him with having offered £0 as an inducement to George Woods, a servant ol the Metropolitan Asylums Board, to do a certain thing in which the Bourd were concerned. Mr C. P. Ulll, K.C., who prosecuted, said thut the defendant was a butcher in an extensive way of business. He hud given tenders for meut to the Board which hud been accepted. On October 8 last year he called at the offices of the Metropolitan Asylums Board and asked for a tender form. Woods, the head messenger, a trusted ser•vant of the Board, gave the defendant the usual form. Walker said, "This Is not what 1 want. I want a list of the persons who have given tenders." He tilled iv the form in the name of "J. Philp, 82 Marchaut-st." Wood explained that he could not comply with the defendant's request to supply him with the list of the persons who had given the tenders. The defendant, having then usked Wood for hla private address, lert the ofllce, and nothing more wus Been of him until March 0 this year, when he called again, and made n similar request for tht particular list he wanted, but it was re> fused. On March 7, when Wood returned home to Bnrnet, he found the defendant waiting at ttfe station booking office. He approached Wood and offered him a drink and a cigar, both of which Wood refused. In the course of conversation he again referred to the list of persons who hod been supplied with forms of tender. Wood said he could not get him the list. Walker then snid, "I will give you a 'nver' and my card to my tailor for a suit of clothes If It comes off." Wood at once reported the mutter to the Board, and, acting ou Instructions, he wrote to the defendunt making an appointment to meet him at the Ludgate Hill railway station. The defendant kept tlie appointment, and In the presence of Detec-tire-luflpector Holmes, City Police, after having given to him the list, he banded £!5 to Wood. This constituted the offence complained of.

Mr Charles Mathews urged, in extenuatloii, that the provisions of t£e Public Bodies Corrupt Practices Act were not widely known. The defendant was v man of the highest respectability, and lie did not fully realise the serious nature of the offence at the time he committed it.

The Recorder characterised the offence as a very serious one, and fined the defendant £500.