Sick Pensioner Charged With Defrauding Department

Press, Volume XCVI, Issue 28415, 23 October 1957, Page 14

Sick Pensioner Charged With Defrauding Department

(New Zealand Press Association)

AUCKLAND, October 22. A story of illness, extreme hardship, and family tragedy was told in the Auckland Magistrate’s Court, when a 45-year-old pensioner admitted four charges of making false statements to the Social Security Department to obtain a sickness benefit. The man, Allan Priestley Kenworthy, and his wife and four children—one of them a spastic—had lived ‘‘in a state as close to poverty as New Zealanders know it,” said his counsel, Mr P. B. Temm. To meet his case there should be something less than a penalty of imprisonment. Kenworthy was allowed bail, and remanded for a week for sentence. Mr J. W. Overton, the police prosecutor, said Kenworthy had received a sickness benefit since 1942. but in the years from 1953 to 1956 falsely stated that his income was nil, although he was working as a part-time barman. Sick Child He earned a total of £Bl7 for the period, and was consequently overpaid £595 by the department. He admitted he knew he was doing wrong, but said his youngest child who was ill had been a great financial burden, and he found it difficult to support his family on the benefit. Mr Temm said Kenworthy was married with three children when, in 1942, he suddenly found he had hypertension, and he was told he could not work again. He was put on a benefit that brought in a little more than £3 10s a week. The family managed till 1946, but in that year there was a fourth child, and Kenworthy had to undergo a serious heart operation. By 1949, although the benefit had increased, so also had the cost of living, and the family of six had to live on a sum even an average family would find extremely hard to do. Wife’s Breakdown Then, in 1952, Mrs Kenworthy had to go to hospital; Kenworthy and one of the children contracted poliomyelitis; the youngest child was found to be suffering from cerebral palsy, and when another child was mistakenly reported swept out to sea from a beach, Mrs Kenworthy suffered a nervous breakdown.

Things went from bad to worse, said Mr Temm. Mrs Kenworthy had had to give up the domestic work which brought in about £1 a week. She had to be given a holiday to help her recover, and this made a further inroad on the little money coming in.

The household furniture and fittings, and the family’s clothing, were worn out. Reduced to a state of almost complete penury, the family found it impossible to live and to meet medical expenses incurred with the youngest child, on the benefit, now £7. Wedding for Daughter So in 1953. thinking he could earn up to £7B legally, Kenworthy took part-time work, though warned of the serious effect this might have on him. Next year, ‘‘encouraged because he found himself still alive,” he worked more. This was the pattern for the next two years, also, and his only “extravagances” were the purchase of a second-hand washing machine for his wife, and a motor-mower, said Mr Temm. Last year, the eldest girl was married. Kenworthy gave her a formal wedding because, he claimed, “since she was a kid she’d had nothing. She was getting married and I thought I’d give her something.” Kenworthy’s case, said Mr Temm, pleading for leniency, was very different from some which came before the Court. Mr H. Jenner Wily, S.M.. said there were distressing circumstances in Kenworthy’s life, and he wanted a probation officer’s report before imposing sentence.