Manager Committed For Trial

Press, Volume CVII, Issue 31439, 4 August 1967, Page 18

Manager Committed For Trial

A police file and exhibits relating to Lumberjack Overland, Ltd., and its manager, Stephen Bazley, had disappeared from his office in the C. 1.8. and had never been found, Detective Sergeant Neville John Stokes said in the Magistrate’s Court yesterday.

He said that Bazley denied all knowledge of the matter and of the company’s receiptbook, which had been taken from the office of a public accountant. Bazley, aged 31, a company director, was committed to the Supreme Court for trial after pleading not guilty to two charges.

He is alleged to have concurred in the making of a false set of company accounts on or about October 8, 1966, with intent to induce lan McEwan Nugent to become a shareholder of Lumberjack Overland, Ltd., and to have attempted to defeat the course of justice by causing a receipt-book, a material exhibit relating to the falseaccounts charge, to be obtained from the office of J. B. Midgley, a public accountant, and disposing of it, on June 19, 1967. Messrs A. H. Dale and A. C. Rhodes, Justices of the Peace, refused to grant the accused bail.

Mr R. G. Blunt, with him Mr P. D. Woolley, appeared for the accused, and Mr C. M. Roper for the Crown. ALLEGED APPROACHES Jack Kenneth Thiele, a farmer and insurance broker, of Charteris Bay, said he received a telephone call from the accused. “He said investigations were being made into his company and that I was on his books. He asked me to confirm this, and I told him, ‘I don’t want any part in It’.” The witness said he had never owed £ll6 5s to Lumberjack Overland, Ltd. Maurice Timothy Enright, a staff sergeant at Burnham Military Camp, said he knew the accused, but Lumberjack Overland had never done work for him.

“Early this year Bazley rang me at Burnham and asked if I would do something for him. He said he was in a little difficulty. He asked me if I would say I had had a job done for me by a firm called Lumberjack Overland." The witness said he had some reservations, but did not give an outright refusal because of his past association with the accused. Brent Procter, a journalist said that Lumberjack Overland had never done work for him, and he had never owed it £lB 10s or any other amount. RECEIPT BOOK

Frank James Hitchens, a sales manager, said that on June 19 last the accused asked him to go to the office of J. B. Midgley and pick up a receipt-book of Lumberjack Overland. He said it was needed for lan Nugent. The witness said he got the receipt-book and gave it to Evan Wood outside, the accused’s office. Two days later the accused told him there was some inquiry and asked him not to mention the receipt-book to anybody. “Bazley said there was a possibility I might be asked to attend an identification parade in relation to the receipt-book. He suggested I should have a smart suit to give a different image. “BOUGHT SUIT” "He bought a two-piece suit, a shirt, tie, hat and pair of socks. I got dressed in the clothes and pulled some of my hair over to the side to cover some of my forehead.” The witness said the accused told him an alibi had been arranged at a flat in Horatio street for the time the receipt-book had been taken. The witness said. he then

went to the C. 1.8. office and saw Detective Sergeant Stokes.

Ernest Evan Wood, an unemployed salesman, said he went with Hitchens to J. B. Midgley’s office on June 19. He then went with him to the accused’s office at 130 Hereford street, where Hitchens gave him the book. “I took it up to Bazley’s office and gave it to him. Later he told me not to mention it to any one.” Elaine Anne Vani, a Hospital Board employee, said the accused asked her not to give the correct times within which Hitchens and Wood had been away from the flat on June 19 if she and her companion were asked by the police. DETECTIVE’S EVIDENCE

Detective Sergeant Stokes said he interviewed the accused on February 10 and told him of Nugent’s allegation about the sale of shares in Lumberjack Overland, Ltd. The accused denied telling Nugent that the company’s accounts had been prepared by J. B. Midgley. The witness said the accused told him he had not mentioned the £2OOO loan in the accounts because it was a personal loan and did not involve the company. “He said he was adjudged bankrupt early in 1965 and cleared in December, 1966.” The witness said he searched the accused’s office and home, and took possesssion of Lumberjack Overland documents, including a re-ceipt-book, wages book, and a hand-written sheet of paper headed “revenue". INTERVIEWED AGAIN He said the accused told him he would be wasting his time checking the receiptbook. He interviewed the accused again later in the presence of Mr Blunt and an accountant.

“I told him I had found some correct receipts, but pointed out to him there were some receipts where the person named said the job had not been done, and others where we could not find any such person. “The accused said we would find some of the receipts were incorrect, because Thomas frequently came into the office with money and rolls of notes from jobs and on occasions could not remember the name Of the person for whom the job was done. “In such cases he had put the job down under someone else’s name or had included jobs together, and on occasions had made up names and addresses." The witness said the accused told him he had not banked all money received, but had used some for cash purchases of equipment. He had used the office drawer as a bank, and this was why the accounts quoted £157 8s in the bank on October 8 and not the actual amount of £3 6s lOd.

Detective Sergeant Stokes said he arrested the accused on May 8. “The complete police file

and some of the exhibits were held in my office at the C. 1.8. Between 2.20 p.m. on June 16 and 9 a.m. on June 18 the file and exhibits disappeared from the office. There has been no trace of them to this day.” The witness said be interviewed the accused on June 20, and the accused denied all knowledge of the disappearance of the police file and exhibits and of the company’s official receipt-book being taken from J. B. Midgley's office. He said he had no idea where it was. The witness said he arrested the accused on June 26 and charged him with attempting to defeat the course of justice by obtaining and disposing of the receipt-book. Noel Bruce Ullrich, a public accountant, said he assisted Detective Sergeant Stokes in his investigations. His own investigations showed the company was trading at a loss up to the date of sale. It did not have a rosy future.