Supreme Court Judge To Sum Up Today In Wahrlich Trial

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29830, 24 May 1962, Page 18

Supreme Court Judge To Sum Up Today In Wahrlich Trial

Mr Justice Macarthur will sum up today in the trial of Oswald Oliver Wahrlich, aged 42, an insurance agent (Mr R. G. Blunt), who faces 10 charges of theft of £4730, 10 of false accounting of the same amounts, eight of obtaining £4600 by false pretences, and one of theft of £lOOO by failure to account.

The evidence showed Wahrlich to be intelligent and plausible, and a man who could tell a convincing He, said the Crown Prosecutor <Mr C. M. Roper) in his adddiress to the jury yesterday. “He’s an unscrupulous man.” Mr Roper said. “It is for you to decide whether he is a simple man whose optimism outran his ability or whether he is a man who is cunning and scheming.” Mr Roper suggested that Wahrlich had fobbed off his two successive company secretaries with lies about whet he had done with money deposited with his companies, because he knew that if the Fidelity Guarantee Corporation, Ltd., could have kept going and prospered no-one would ever have discovered his thefts.

“They would have been concealed, given time,” said Mr Roper. Mr Roper said it was not unknown for a man with a flair for separating persons frpm their money to set up companies and so manipulate affairs that the persons lost their money—in such a way that his actions were just morally wrong. But in Wahrlich’s ease it was criminal liability the Court was concerned with. “You will have to consider with each charge whether he acted in good faith or whether he had fraudulent intent. Consider the type of man he is—an insurance agent, and a good one. In other words, no fool.” Defence Counsel Mr Blunt told, the jury that the crux of the matter was whether Wahrlich intended to steal the deposi-

tors’ money. He submitted that it was a case of misplaced optimism—on Wahrlich's part in thinking his business would be such a success that he could pay the 9 per cent, he offered, and on the depositors' part in thinking they could get 9 per cent, interest on investments.

“Did he intend to steal the depositors’ money?” he asked. “The company to all intents and purposes is Wahrlich himself, so if he steals from the company he is stealing from himself. “Isn’t the answer that he borrowed the money and intended to repay it? It is the same with the false entries in the company books —he intended to borrow, not defraud. Regarding the false pretences, there may have been a false pretence in some cases, but there was no intent to defraud.” Mr Blunt said that Wahrlich's answer to the final charge of theft of £lOOO by failing to account .was that the money was a' personal loan to himself, and so he was not criminally liable when he failed to repay. Decree Nisi Granted Mr Justice Richmond granted a decree nisi in the Supreme Court yesterday to Frank William James Murdoch in an undefended divorce suit against Mary Kathleen Murdoch on the ground of living apart for seven years.