Architect Guilty On One Charge

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30811, 24 July 1965, Page 3

Architect Guilty On One Charge

(New Zealand Press Association) WELLINGTON, July 23. Harry Leo Symmans, aged 38, was found guilty by a jury in the Supreme Court today on a charge under the Secret Commissions Act, but was acquitted on a second charge.

Mr Justice Hutchinson remanded Symmans for sentence. Bail was allowed on his own recognisance. Symmans was found guilty that, being an agent of the Education Board, he presented to the board an account for £756 10s from Philip Randal Jackson, a private architect, for professional services in connexion with ground works for the new Picton District High School and omitted to state that a percentage of that

amount had, by agreement, been given him by Jackson. He was acquitted on a charge that, being an agent of the board, he did corruptly accept a consideration from Jackson of the sum of £686 18s as a reward for preparing working drawings of the new school. The Crown alleged that Symmans, faced with designing a particular school in a hurry, selected an outside architect ostensibly to do it, did it himself and was paid a percentage of the fee to the outside architect. Symmans claimed he had acted with the concurrence of the chairman and secretarymanager of the board and because of pressure of work, he had worked on the school project in his own time.