£10,000 ON DESK

Auckland Star, Volume LXXII, Issue 281, 27 November 1941, Page 8

£10,000 ON DESK

ARMY PAY TROUBLE OFFICER NOT GUILTY MELBOURNE, November 24. An army paymaster told a Criminal Court jury to-day that he had about £10,000 in cash on his office table on September 24. The jury found the paymaster, Lieutenant Joseph David Kearney, not guilty of having fraudulently misappropriated £320 9/, belonging to the Commonwealth, between September 10 and October 2. Kearney said chaos had been caused when, at 5 p.m. on September 23, he had been instructed to make a double pay on September 24 to hospitals and staff at Swanston Street Army Headquarters, because of the Show Day holiday on September 25. The £10,000 on his office table on September 24 was under his constant surveillance except for a few seconds occasionally when he answered the telephone or attended queries by counter clerks. The money was paid out in fairly large sums, including £2600 for Heidelberg .Hospital. Kearney said he got official receipts for amounts which went outside the office to hospitals.

But for money paid to sections in the Swanston Street building, receipts were usually on bits of paper. The rush prevented his making an early check of his cash and receipts, he said. In another rush pay on October 1, he paid £800 to men from Darwin. When the £320 shortage was discovered he tried to discover the cause of the discrepancy, but failed.

Kearney said that from July, 1940, when he was made a lieutenant, to October 2, when he had been suspended, he had disbursed more than £500,000 in pay. He had not before been accused of dishonesty.