Car Firm's Manager Fined £50

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31126, 1 August 1966, Page 3

Car Firm 's Manager Fined £50

(N.Z. Press Association) HAMILTON, July 31.

Bruce William Mundy, managing director of Fleetwood Motors, Ltd., Hamilton, pleaded not guilty in the Hamilton Magistrate’s Court on Friday to two breaches of the Motor Vehicle Dealers’ Act.

Mundy was fined £25 on each charge. The first was that he procured Fleetwood Motors, Ltd., to commit an offence by failing within seven days of the completion of the sale of the car as agent for Colleen Agnes Gilroy to render to her an account in writing setting forth particulars of money received from the transaction and the application thereof. The second charge was

failing to pay Colleen Agnes Gilroy all money received from the sale of the car within seven days of the receipt of the money. The prosecution was conducted by Detective SeniorSergeant J. G. Long. Mundy was defended by Mr M. F. Chilwell, Q.C., and Mr P. F. Feenstra. The hearing was before Mr Stewart Hardy, S.M. Colleen Agnes Gilroy, married, of St. Heliers, Auckland, said that in November, 1965, her husband gave her a Pontiac car. On December 1 she authorised Fleetwood Motors to sell it

Herbert Patrick Gilroy, her husband, said that on January 26 he inquired about the car at Fleetwood Motors. He was told the vehicle was at Huntly, but this proved to be incorrect. After he had discovered from the motor vehicles registration office in Wellington that the car had been sold on December 10 he approach-

ed the firm again and his wife was paid for the car. Iro Matamua, of Tokoroa, said he bought the Pontiac from Fleetwood Motors on December 10. Michael Terence Moore, formerly a salesman on the staff of Fleetwood Motors and now employed by another car firm in Hamilton, said he went to the Gilroy house on December 1 and accepted the Pontiac for sale on behalf of Mrs Gilroy. He said he sold the car to Iro Matamua on December 10. When Mr Gilroy called at Fleetwood Motors in January he told him the car was at Huntly. He did so because he had been given the information when he inquired at the firm’s office. He could not recall who on the staff had told him the car had gone to Huntly and it had not entered his head at the time that it was the same Pontiac he had received from

Mrs Gilroy. He put this down to pressure of business. In reply to Mr Chilwell witness said Fleetwood Motors was selling between 100 and 200 cars a month. When he had made a sale he placed the sale note in a basket for the accountant and the secretary to deal with the documentation and registration. • Witness said the defendant, Mundy, was concerned principally with selling and had little to do with accountancy details. Mr Chilwell submitted that the prosecution should be dismissed on both legal and factual grounds. The Magistrate said he was satisfied that the evidence of Mr Gilroy and his wife about their dealings with the firm was true and uncoloured by their feelings about what had happened to the car. He was satisfied that the day-to-day management of the business had been delegated to Mundy by the other directors.