Former Solicitor For Trial On Nine Charges

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28618, 21 June 1958, Page 14

Former Solicitor For Trial On Nine Charges

(New Zealand Press Association)

WELLINGTON, June 20. At the end of a hearing lasting five days, Patrick Connolly Pearse McGavin, aged 41, a salesman, and former solicitor, today pleaded not guilty to all nine charges brought against him in the Magistrate’s Court, Wellington, and Mr J. B. Thomson, S.M., committed him for trial at the Supreme Court sittings beginning on August 5, and renewed his bail. The charges against McGavin are eight of stealing sums of £lO,OOO, £350, £43 (two), £24, £23, £l7 and £6, and one of attempting to obtain £5443 by a false pretence. When all the evidence against McGavin had been heard, his senior counsel, Mr G. C. Kent, said: “There could easily by a misoconception arising from the publication of evidence—l make no criticism of the way it has been done—that it is part of the Crown’s case that £lO,0 n 0 McGavin received from Cheape was applied wholly and directly to his own use. I want to say on behalf of McGavin that that is not the position, as a perusal of his trust account ledger shows.

“Statement No. 1 prepared by the Crown investigating officer shows that over dealings of approximately £19,000, the sum of £645 only was transferred to McGavin’s account. “As to his arrest in Australia, I want to correct any possible impression that may have been created that he left Ne-v Zealand surreptitiously to avoid prosecution. He left New Zealand in October, 1954, 13 or 14 months after his suspension. “Before leaving New Zealand he communicated with the police, and he again communicated with the police after his arrival in Australia. He has been in Australia continuously ever since, and has never attempted to avoid the

jurisdiction of New Zealand or any other country.’’ Earlier today, the Court heard the evidence against McGavin on the six charges of stealing sums of £43 and less. They concerned mopey handled on behalf of four clients.

In each instance it is alleged that sums intended for the payment of hospital bills were not passed on, and in the case of one client it is alleged also that a sum due to the client was not paid, and in another that a sum due to the Social Security Department was not paid. Pat Sharland, senior secretarial clerk for the Wellington Hospital Board said that a statute gave the board a charge on damages awarded to a patient, and the board looked for payment to the solicitor who acted for the patient. Accounts of £43 incurred by Mrs Burns, £24 by Jasionowicz, £23 by Harman and £6 by Taffe were paid by neither McGavin nor the patients, but by the Law Society, the witness said. Cross-examined by Mr Kent, Sharland said that unless a solicitor communicated with the board in the course of preparing a claim for damages or they read about it in the newspapers, the board would know nothing about the claim. Many claims were settled, and if a solicitor was thoroughly careless of the needs of the board he could leave It out of the claim. An officer of the Social Security Department, lan Lyall James Powell, gave evidence that £l7 5s sickness benefit was paid to Jasionowicz on condition that it was refunded in the event of his receiving damages, but it was not refunded and the Law Society paid.