Periodic detention for card fraud

Press, 28 March 1981, Page 4

Periodic detention for card fraud

An unemployed man who obtained S37BS worth of goods and services by using a bank credit card which had a credit limit of $5OO was sentenced to periodic detention for nine months by Judge Frampton in the District Court yesterday. The judge told _T.oger James Harris, aged 37, that many people who embarked on a series of false pretence offences often started from scratch. “But with a bank credit card you had a flying start,” he said.

In addition to periodic detention Harris was put on probation for 12 months and ordered to pay compensation of $3788 as directed by the probation officer. Earlier Harris had admitted 145 charges that with intent to defraud he had used a bank credit card to. obtain a pecuniary advantage.. Counsel (Mr G. M. Brodie) said that when his client had been issued with the credit card he had been working as a furniture removal driver earning $250 a week and he also had savings of $l5OO.

He later was made redundant and began using the card modestly between September, last year, and Christmas, but substantially after that until last month. 51 OFFENCES

A sickness beneficiary who admitted 49 offences of false pretence, involving almost $12,000. was convicted and remanded in custody to April 3 for a probation report and sentence. Rose Lillian Bourke, aged 47, (Mr M. J. Glue) who also admitted a charge of theft and another of obtaining credit by fraud, committed the offences through the North Island and the northern part of the South Island, said Sergeant S. D. A. Hooper.

He said the offending originated from the use of two stolen cheque books containing a total of 160 cheques. Property and cash obtained amounted to $11,957 and compensation of this amount was sought. Sergeant Hooper said as a result of using the cheques the defendant obtained clothing, liquor and expensive jewellery. Of the $BOOO worth of jewellery purchased only $355 worth had been recovered. CHARGES DENIED

Eric Lucian Hall, aged 29, a car wrecker, alleged to have assaulted three traffic officers, denied the charges. He was remanded on bail to May 13 for a defended hearing. Hall is charged with having assaulted Warren Hall Jones, Graham Lawrence Reeves and Richmond Murray Wall, on March 9.

THEFT CHARGES ■ A shop owner who appeared on eight charges of theft involving $4500 was further remanded without plea to April 3. When he first appeared last week Kenneth Henry Aldridge, aged 50, faced two theft charges. Six more were laid yesterday. As a result Aldridge now faces six charges of stealing various sums of money, totalling $3347, from his employer. N.Z. Fibreglass, Ltd; and two charges of stealing a total of $978 from the firm’s social club funds. The alleged offences were said to have occurred between 1978 and 1980. An application for the continued interim suppression of the defendant’s name was refused by the Judge. CHARGES DENIEDA man charged with the. deaths of a motor-cyclist and his pillion* passenger in Cranford Street, last month, denied the alleged offences. Nga Kimiia, aged 31, (Miss S. Fleming), unemployed, was remanded on bail to June 8 for a defended hearing. He is charged with causing the deaths of Stuart William Albert Long, aged 15, and Steven Mark Double, aged 18, by carelessly using a vehicle.

The charges relate to an accident in Cranford Street in which two persons were killed following a collision between a motor-cycle and a car outside the St Albans Fire Station.

Kimiia also faces charges of driving while not the holder of a driver's licence, driving a vehicle with an insufficient tyre depth, and cf driving with an excess blood-alcohol level.