ILLEGAL DOCUMENTS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 263, 5 November 1932, Page 13

ILLEGAL DOCUMENTS.

NOTICES SENT TO DEBTORS,

AERO CLUB SECRETARY TO PAY COSTS.

(By Telegraph.—Fress Association.)

WELLINGTON, Friday.

The secretary of tho Wellington Aero Club, Alexander William Nesbit, was convicted in the magistrate s and ordered to pay costs for posting to one of the club's debtors a document "in imitation of a judicial process." The form was impressively headed: —Notice. Final notice of intention to proceed in the local Court. The text contained legal terminology. Counsel for Nesbit explained that the club had difficulty in collecting some amounts due. One of the executive_ bought from a canvasscr a number of blue forms. One of these was sent to a man who rang up the Court and asked for time to pay. It was then learned that the document was illegal. Nesbit, as secretary, had obediently followed instructions, and on learning of the illegality of the form had endeavoured to trace the man from whom the forms were bought. Counsel asked for the suppression of defendant's name. The magistrate said he had no doubt that defendant acted without knowledge of the statutory bar to this sort of document. It seemed clear that the document came within the section and the issue constituted a legal offence. Defendant would be convicted and ordered to pay costs. There was no power in a case of this sort to make an order suppressing the name. A second defendant, Robert Watchman, grocer, was similarly charged and similarly dealt with.