CASH WARRANTS

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIV, Issue 41, 18 February 1943, Page 2

CASH WARRANTS

HINTS TO OFFICIALS

DANGER OF FORGERY

"I think I should make some observations in the public interest, said Mr. Justice Callan to-day when sentencing a Maori on charges of having forged pay warrants issued to him under Social Security authority, whereby he increased the amounts and defrauded the State. His Honor said the persons responsible for the machinery of the Social Security benefits had wisely made safeguards. The postal warrants always contained the amount in words and figures, and in the case of Maoris the system at the post-office pay counter was for the payee s signature to be witnessed by one clerk and the payment to be made by another. They were excellent precautions, but he was compelled to conclude that in this case the officers at the counter had rather fallen down in the administration.' "I have the first warrant cashed by the prisoner before me," said his Honor, "and I had no hesitation in seeing there was an erasure. Not one of these warrants would have got past the scrutiny of the ordinary careful teller in an ordinary trading bank." His Honor added that there might be a good deal to say for the postal officers struggling with abnormal conditions, with inexperienced persons dealing in rush circumstances in matters on which they had received no training.