Car Salesman Found Guilty

Press, Volume CV, Issue 31061, 17 May 1966, Page 3

Car Salesman Found Guilty

(N.Z. Press Association) AUCKLAND, May 16. A jury in the Supreme Court at Auckland tonight found Ronald HenryBaxter, aged 36, a car salesman, guilty of 13 charges of forgery and 14 charges of uttering. The jury acquitted Baxter of one charge of forgery. All the charges concerned the importing of cars during 1964.

Baxter, who was represented by Mr R. L. Maclaren and Mr A. B. Lawson, was remanded for sentence by Mr Justice Moller. The Crown case was conducted by Mr D. S. Morris and Mr E. R. Winkel. The jury returned its verdict after a retirement of nearly three and a half hours. In his address to the jury, Mr Lawson said: “We were told when this case opened that one or two people might perhaps know a little more than they w-ould care to say. That surely was the understatement of this trial.”

The defence would be foolish to suggest that Baxter was not involved in some way in attempting to breach or get round the Customs Regulations, he said.

“There is no doubt whatever that this gift scheme and qualified share scheme were being abused —not only by the accused, but by just about everybody—motor-deal-ers and the public. “The defence says Baxter has not been proved guilty of forgery and uttering which are crimes very different

from breaches of the Customs Act.” Speaking of application for licences and the declarations which went with them, Mr Lawson said no handwriting expert had been called in the trial. “If Baxter signed these documents isn’t it odd that in some of them there is an ‘X’

besides the signature? He wouldn’t put that there if he was going to sign it himself.” Mr Lawson then dealt with the bank and sharebroker’s letters and said: “I suggest that there are other people more likely to have typed these letters than Baxter.” In the bank letters the word “amount” appeared as “ammount,” he said. It was admitted that in correspondence Baxter wrote the word the same way. It was surely possible that one in four people could make such a mistake, particularly if he was used to seeing it spelt that way. Mr Morris in his final address said that “what has been suggested is that the evidence establishes beyond reasonable doubt that there has been a very careful, thought-out, considered and executed system of fraud upon the country.”