TELEPHONE ACCOUNTS

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29791, 6 April 1962, Page 18

TELEPHONE ACCOUNTS

Dismissal Of Employee (<VZ. Press Assn.—Copyright) CANBERRA, April 4. An employee in the telephone accounts section of the G.P.O, Melbourne, has been dismissed by the Public Service Board. It was announced today that the board had accepted a recommendation of the Postal Department on the employee, who will finish duty with the post office today. He had been tried in a Melbourne Court and found guilty of having a number of dockets for trunk line telephone charges in his possession. The Postmaster - General <Mr Davidson), in a long statement to Parliament last week dealing with allegations of gambling rackets in the Post Office, said the man’s d ismissal had been recommended to the Public Service Board. Mr Davidson said that, after a disclosure that dockets for some trunk line calls were not being brought to account, the man was suspended from duty, tried in Court, and convicted. An - mount of £l5OO in trunk I.ne fees had been recovered from the telephone subscriber whose trunk line charge dockets had been involved. Although he did not specifically link this case with gambling, Mr Davidson’s statement was in reply to charges against the Department which included allegations that the trunk line dockets for calls made by gambling operators were not being brought into account. Two other postal workers have been charged following the investigations into alleged improper practices in the Post Office. No decision tn either case has been announced. Investigations into the activities of another officer are proceeding.