SOCIAL SECURITY FRAUDS

Press, Volume XCVI, Issue 28445, 27 November 1957, Page 18

SOCIAL SECURITY FRAUDS

Man Sent To Prison For Three Months (New Zealand Press Association) AUCKLAND. November 26. A plea by counsel that Henry George Hogan, aged 49. was one of society’s misfits was not accepted by Mr W. S. Spence, S.M. in the Auckland Magistrate’s Court today. Sentencing Hogan to three months’ imprisonment on 10 charges involving social security fraud, the Magistrate described him as “lazy—a man who worked only when he felt inclined, and no asset to his family, whose terrible circumstances were his own resoonsibility.” Hogan appeared for sentence on nine charges of misleading a departmental officer to obtain a social security benefit, and a tenth charge of attempting to mislead an officer. The Court was told last week that he had been almost a constant beneficiary since 1939 and was on an unemployment benefit from the beginning of this year. Today Mr M. E. Casey said that Hogan had to support his wife and six children on a £7 5s benefit. The Probation Officer had suggested that he was a ne’er-do-well, but because of some type of neurosis there seemed to be a sheer inability or will to work on his part. The Magistrate said there was no evidence to show that Hogan’s health precluded him from work. His wife had to go out to seasonal work to support the family while he drank, bet on racing, and played billiards for money. The family had not seen much of what money he did get, and with him in prison they would be better off, because steps would be taken to see that they did get the benefits they were entitled to. Hogan’s sentence would have been longer, said the Magistrate, but for the fact that the money he drew wrongly, £53 Bs, was comparatively small.