Finding Of Documents In Minister’s Room Described

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31623, 8 March 1968, Page 18

Finding Of Documents In Minister’s Room Described

(New Zealand Press Association)

AUCKLAND, March 7.

A “stamp racket” was to have been perpetrated in connection with a Cook Islands stamp issue, according to documents found in the hotel room of Robert Julian Dashwood, a former Cook Islands Cabinet Minister, Albert Charles Dawson said in the Supreme Court today.

Mr Dawson, a former manager of the Rarotonga Hotel, is claiming $10,230 damages against the Cook Islands Government and two police officers for alleged malicious prosecution and libel. The trial is in its fourth day before Mr Justice Perry and a jury. Mr Dawson is represented by Mr R. L. Maclaren and Mr D. J. Hill. Counsel for the Government and one police officer are Mr R. J. Barker and Mr A. A. Lusk. Mr P. B. Temm is appearing for the other police officer. During cross-examination by Mr Temm today, Mr Dawson said it was obvious to him from one of the documents found in Mr Dashwood's room that a stamp racket was going on. Mr Dawson agreed that by the end of April, although charges had not been laid, rumours could have been circulating in the island about the finding of the papers in the wastepaper basket. Some people, who did not know the full circumstances, might have regarded the finding of the papers as “underhand,” He denied that he was shown less respect in the islands after the rumours started. He said he was not worried about what people thought. “My -ole motive was to do something in the public interest—what any right-

minded citizen would do,” he said. He admitted that one of the original documents, a letter from Mr Dashwood to Mr Eustace, had never been in the possession of the Government or the police. His solicitors had kept it on his behalf.

His Honour asked Mr Dawson if it was known before he was charged that his wife had removed the documents from the wastepaper basket, or whether the fact had been concealed. Mr Dawson said that it was not made known until after he had been charged in Court.

His Honour: That is why your wife was not charged with stealing or receiving the papers? Mr Dawson: Yes, that is so.

Mr Dawson left the witness box at 12.25 p.m. He had given evidence since Monday afternoon. Jessie Alfreda Dawson Mid the friendly relationship between her husband and Mr Dashwood deteriorated at the end of 1965 and early in December she heard Mr Dashwood say to her husband: “I shall use every influence I have, politically and otherwise, to sink you." On January -8, 1966, she wrote a receipt to the Treasury on her husband’s instructions for £573 Ils 6d.

On February 4, 1966, she was questioned by a Treasury official about a discrepancy of £73 Ils fid between a voucher and a receipt pasted on the back.

The Treasury official checked the hotel safe and found there was no surplus money there.

On April 21, in the course of duties in the hotel, she checked Mr Dashwood’s room and noticed that his wastepaper basket was full. A staff member had omitted to empty it. She began to empty it herself and noticed a lot of envelopes addressed to the postmaster, with the stamps taken off the corner. She became curious and picked them up to look at them. She saw one envelope with something in it and on opening it she found a typewritten letter from Mr Dashwood to Mr EusMce, a letter from Mr Eustace to the Minister of Finance and a typewritten letter from Mr Eustace to Mr Dashwood. She also saw torn-up pieces of paper, which she put together with sticky tape. She recognised one as the draft pf the letter in Mr Dashwood’s own hand to Mr Eustace. She did not go near the cupboard in Mr Dashwood’s room..

On April 22, she found more handwritten letters which had obviously been discarded and torn up. She stuck them together. She put the letters together because she was very disturbed by their contents and thought they would bear investigation. She said she showed them to her husband, and he was as shocked as she was. She asked him to take them to the High Commissioner. When she got the documents back, she said, she concealed them. “I knew they weren’t things to be left lying around," she said.