BARBED WIRE THEFT

Press, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 25249, 30 July 1947, Page 3

BARBED WIRE THEFT

ROSS SENTENCED TO IMPRISONMENT

“CORRUPTING INFLUENCE” (P.A.) WELLINGTON, July 29. “I am afraid you have brought yourself here to-day through adopting the pernicious practice of acquiring business by paying a commission to employees of the Government,” said the Chief Justcie (Sir Humphrey O’Leary), in the Supreme Court to-day, to Leonard James Thompson Ross, aged 43, company director, who appeared for sentence for the theft of 10 tons of Government barbed wire.

Lt sapped the loyalty of the employee and undermined the confidence of the employer, his Honour added. He could not help concluding that Ross was something of a corrupting influence on others in the dealings which had brought him before the Court. He would have thought that a previous experience of gaol, together with his industry and success in business, would have kept Ross from further lapses. Counsel for the prisoner said that on the day before the trial began the bank had called up his company's overdraft. It was not a company which could carry on by itself without Ross. His Honour sentenced Ross to two years’ imprisonment with hard labour.