BANKRUPT BUILDER.

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 110, 12 May 1930, Page 10

BANKRUPT BUILDER.

CASE OF C. W. BRUCE

APPLICATION FOR A RETRIAL.

When Clarence William Bruce, builder, of Auckland, was found guilty last week of wilful failure to keep proper books with intent to conceal the true state of his affairs, his . counsel, Mr. Jordan, intimated that he wished to apply-for a retrial, and the question of whether permission should be given for application to be made to the Appeal Court was argued in the Supreme Court this morning. In making the application, Mr. Jordan contended that the weight of evidence was against the verdict of the jury. The evidence of the witnesses Phillips, Price and Holmes, he contended, outweighed the suggestion that a sum of £1644 mentioned'in the case was not substantially spent in wages,, and also that part of the £1644 was wrongfully used and the fact concealed by accused. In regard to the profits said to have been made on -two houses in Vincent Road and two others in Tarwera Road, the Crown had offered no evidence that this money had not been lost in the other contracts, I For the Crown, Mr. Hubble contended that there was no reasonable arguable ground'on which the Court of Appeal was likely to grant a new trial. Jt was hopeless to contend that accused had kept proper hooks and he had not pleaded that he had been prevented from keeping them either by accident or by ignorance. As a result, counsel contended, the jury was entitled to assume that the accused had concealed the true state of his affairs.

(Proceeding.)