STRANGE BANKRUPTCY.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 219, 15 September 1932, Page 11

STRANGE BANKRUPTCY.

AFFAIRS OF H. D. McINTOSH.

CHARGES Or CONSPIRACY.

WELL-KNOWN K.C. INVOLVED.

(From Our Own Correspondent.) SYDNEY, September 9. For some time past the affairs of Mr. H. D. Mcintosh have been an object of interest and curiosity to the Registrar-in-Bankruptcy, and he can hardly blame the general public for being interested as well. For these affairs are complicated to the extremest degree of entanglement, and gradually the investigators have worked their way to a point at which the law has found it necessary to intervene In the earlier stages of the examination it became clear that interest would centre largely round the affairs of the Rickards Tivoli Theatres, of which Mr. Mcintosh was co-director along with Mr. Covell and Mr. W. J. Curtis, K.C, a well-known lawyer. It seems that balance-Bheets were seldom issued to the shareholders, but after the assets were encumbered by two separate debentures, Mcintosh gave a third mortgage over them for £15,000. At this time, so the registrar was told, the company also owed about £100,000 on long-dated p.n.'s. All this was unsatisfactory enough, but the situation did not become critical till the investigators came to a sum 6f £13,570, which seemed to have been manipulated in somewhat mysterious fashion. Mr. Curtis, K.C, was subpoenaed, but failed to appear, and Mr. Windeyer, acting for the official receiver, went so far as to hint that it might be necessary to issue a bench-warrant and arrest the recalcitrant witness. Mr. Curtis came to the inquiry next day and protested vehemently against Mr. Windeyer's statements, which he described as "deliberate untruths," declaring that his personal and professional honour had been impugned. As a matter of fact, Mr. Curtis had been engaged on the Tin Hare inquiry for six weeks, v and he had taken advantage of a half-day adjournment to get in a few hours of golf. So that difficulty was emoothed over, but worse trouble began. For Mr. Curtis did not, or could not, explain the meaning and use of that cheque for £13,570 5/11, and when the third partner, Mr. Covell, was called to give evidence the position was clearly becoming desperate. When Covell was asked where the £15,000 borrowed on third mortgage had gone and whether it had ever been put to the company's credit he could give no satisfactory reply. As to Curtis, he could only 6ay that he had lost about £130,000 "over night" in the sudden collapse of investments, but that he would have a complete explanation to offer later on. In the end, Mr. Windeyer drove home his arguments to their logical conclusion, and, at the histance of the liquidator, charges of fraud and conspiracy have been laid against Covell, Mcintosh and Curtis, K.C. They are accused, as directors of Rickards Tivoli Theatres, of having applied various sums—including that mysterious £13,570 —in ways "other than for the purposes of the company," arid the subsequent' proceedings seem likely to justify the claim of one of the leading dailies that this case is "the great legal sensation of recent times."