EMBEZZLED £l500

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 29010, 26 September 1959, Page 13

EMBEZZLED £l500

Man Released On Bond MELBOURNE, Sept. 25 A former lodge secretary who embezzled more than £l5OO was released in Melbourne General Sessions today on a four-yeai bond. A jury found James Sydney Henderson, aged 35, a factory hand, of Balaclava, guilty of having embezzled £l5OO between June, 1954, and May, 1957, while he was secretary of the Loyal St. Kilda Lodge of the M.U.1.0.0.F It added a recommendation foi leniency on the ground that the lodge had been careless in the way it conducted its books. Sentencing Henderson today Judge Cussen said he did not agree with this view. But he had reason to believe that if he gaoled Henderson, it would be equivalent to a death warrant. At least, he said, imprisonment might result in his permanent mental break-down.

Judge Cussen said one reason why he treated Henderson leniently was that, because ol illness of one of the police officers in the case, Henderson had had the case hanging ovei his head for two years. He believed this had contributed largely to a nervous breakdown Henderson had suffered.