Accounting Charges Total $282,121

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32382, 22 August 1970, Page 16

Accounting Charges Total $282,121

John Wilson Richards, a former authorised clerk for the now suspended Christchurch sharebroking and accounting firm of Byrne and Company, pleaded guilty before Mr E. S. J. Crutchley, S.M., in the Christchurch Magistrate’s Court yesterday to 28 charges of false accounting involving sums of money amounting to $282,121.69. The Magistrate convicted Richards on all charges, declined further jurisdiction, and remanded him on bail for sentence in the Supreme Court on August 26. He will also appear for sentence on the same date on two charges of false accounting on which he was found guilty by a jury on August 8.

He was represented by Mr A. D. Holland, who elected summary jurisdiction on his behalf. Mr R. L. Kerr appeared for the Crown. All the offences were committed by Richards, who is now aged 31, between September 30, 1968, and April 24, 1970, while he was a director of Australasian Secured Deposits, Ltd, a company formed to trade in the short-term money market. They all related to the making of false entries or the omitting to make entries in ledgers, cashbooks and cheque butts of the company, and in the ledger accounts of the J. J. Construction Company, Ltd, the Australian Provincial Assurance Discount Corporation, Ltd, and of Mr B. A. Nicholls. Mr Kerr told the Court that with one exception (involving an advance of $2000) all the transactions with which the defendant was charged were made by him to enable his speculative share deals on the New Zealand, Australian and London markets to be financed. Debts To Brokers “On occasions the defendant made profits on these share deals but mostly, and mainly in the last two years, he suffered large unrecoverable losses. On one purchase of 1200 Poseidon shares on the Australian market made by the defendant' late last year he lost upon the sale about $llO,OOO alone,” Mr Kerr said. “In March, 1970, the defendant owed a firm of sharebrokers in Sydney, namely Maurice A. Parker and Company, about $198,000 for sharebroking deals he had entered into. Amounts owing to other sharebrokers brought his total indebtedness to brokers to about $300,000."

Mr Kerr said the defendant was charged initially with the falsification of books of Australasian Secured Deposits, Ltd, in relation to one cheque for, $40,000 and was found guilty by a jury. He was further interviewed by the police on August 13 and admitted the further charges now before the Court. He said the J. J. Construction Company, Ltd, was unaware that the defendant had been transferring moneys from the account of A.S.D., Ltd, debiting their account with A.S.D., Ltd, and paying these amounts into Byrne and Company to a ledger account under their name for sharebroking purposes. “J. J. Construction Company, Ltd, deposited moneys with A.S.D., Ltd, with the express direction that they be secured by Government or local body stock and that their moneys were to be made available at 24 hours notice,” said Mr Kerr.