VALUELESS CHEQUES

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22466, 29 July 1938, Page 8

VALUELESS CHEQUES

LABOURER PLEADS GUILTY REFORMATIVE DETENTION ORDERED (PBES3 1930CH.TI0* TELEOBAII.) AUCKLAND, July 28. A plea of guilty to three charges of obtaining 'money by means of valueless cheques, and a further charge of obtaining credit by fraud, was entered by Edgar Lawrence Gigg, a labourer, aged 26, in the Magistrate's Court. The police said that in November, 1937, for an offence at Queenstown, Gigg was convicted and ordered to come up for sentence if called on within two years. That period had not expired. He had twice been before the Court for theft at Invercargill. The present charges arose out of actions at Christchurch and Hastings. He stopped at a hotel in Christchurch last month and told the licensee he was expecting £lO5 as wages from an Invercargill contractor. He borrowed 10s from him for telephone bureau calls. Later the licensee found that 'there was no contractor of the name given. The sara l ; day Gigg obtained two blank cheque forms from a Christchurch butcher and filled one in for £lO odd and cashed it at the Salvation Army People's Palace. He also obtained a similar sum by a valueless cheque from another Christchurch businessman. ' In Hastings he got £27 by means of a valueless cheque. Disregarding a plea by counsel, Mr C. R. Orr Walker sentenced Gigg to reformative detention for 12 months.