Bookmaking ‘made $100 a day’

Press, 7 December 1978, Page 4

Bookmaking ‘made $100 a day’

The courts

A freezing worker aged 69 convicted on a charge of acting as a bookmaker was fined $3OO by Mr D. B. Pain, S.M., in the Magistrate’s Court yesterday. Raymond Claude Machirus admitted the offence which occurred on Tuesday. He was found with betting records relating to race meetings and illegal picks tickets in his possession when police searched his home, said Sergeant R. H. Prouting. Machirus admitted having acted as a bookmaker at the freezing works and said that on an average race day he would take about $lOO. He said he was not running the business but had acted on a commission basis of 10 cents in the dollar, said Sergeant Prouting.

In his own defence Machirus told the Magistrate that he did not think a breach of an act about as old as himself was a serious crime. In seeking leniency he said he was just an old man with not very long to go. The Magistrate said he disagreed about the seriousness of the crime which according to the amended act now carried a fine not exceeding $5OOO or three months jail. When the fine was imposed Machirus asked if the $123. seized by the police and which the Magistrate ordered to be forfeited to the Crown, could be deducted from the fine, otherwise he would have to pay dividends from his own pocket. The Magistrate refused.

CEMENT THEFT Three thousand and sixty one bags of cement, valued at $11,632, have been taken from the Leeds Street bulk store of Winstones (South Island), Ltd, this year, said Sergeant Prouting.

As a result the firm employed a security adviser to determine who was taking the cement and where it was being taken to. A driver, William Thomas Robertson, was seen to load 50 bags of cement valued at $lB4, and deliver them to a Christchurch address for which he was paid $l2O. When apprehended Robertson, aged 26, said he had stolen 250 bags since the beginning of the year but he declined to say to whom he had delivered them, other than to admit that they had gone to friends cheaply. Sergeant Prouting said Robertson had admitted it was easy to steal the cement and that he thought he could get away with it. Robertson pleaded guilty to stealing 250 bags of cement from the company between April 1 and November 24. The Magistrate convicted Robertson and remanded him to December 13 for a probation report and sentence. Bail of $750 was continued “with some reluctance," said the Magistrate, as the theft involved was substantial.

A company director, aged 29, charged with receiving 50 bags of cement valued at $lB4, from Robertson on

November- 24 denied the charge. He was remanded to January 22 for a defended hearing. The Magistrate granted a continuation of the interim suppression of the defendant’s name.