Woman for trial on fraud claims

Press, 17 June 1982, Page 4

Woman for trial on fraud claims

A woman, in the District Court yesterday, was committed'fqj trial on!78 charges relating to her allegedly fdrging savings bank withdrawal slips, and presenting these to withdraw sums totalling $2760 from accounts operated by a man who was living with her. . The defendant, Marilyn Ruby Jayet, aged 32, a solo mother, elected trial by jury and denied 39 charges of forging savings . bank withdrawal forms, and 39 charges of using withdrawal forms to obtain a pecuniary advantage. After hearing depositions of evidence, or statements, of prosecution witnesses, Messrs C. A. Pilgrim and V. C. Empson, Justices of the Peace, held there was sufficient evidence to-commit the defendant for trial on all charges.

She was remanded on bail to July 2, pending a date for trial in the District Court.

Her counsel (Mrs D. J. Orchard) reserved her defence.

Sergeant M. P. Caldwell, outlining the . prosecutions case said the .charges related to a period between December, 1980, and January this year, during which the defendant lived with the complainant, Craig Beavan Hughes.

Mr Hughes owned a Canterbury Savings Bank budget account and a Bank of New South Wales savings account. Police alleged that the de-

fendant forged 38 withdrawal slips for /amounts totalling $2510 from the C.S.B. account, and one withdrawal slip for 4 $250 from the B.N.S.W. account.

Alfred Denys Crawford, a document examiner and handwriting expert at the national police headquarters, Wellington, gave evidence of examining the withdrawals and specimen slips made out by the complainant and defendant. He concluded that the signatures on the withdrawal slips were forgeries, and that the defendant was the author of all 39 withdrawal forms.

He said a definite attempt had been made to copy the writing style of the complainant.

Mr Crawford detailed similarities in the hand writing which he said led him to conclude “without any doubt” that the defendant was the author of the writing seen on all 39 withdrawal forms. Asked in cross-examina-tion how difficult it would be to copy a person’s signature from memory, Mr Crawford said this would depend on the individual. Two main factors in this were the familiarity of the person with the other party’s signature, - and the ability of the person to retain an image in the mind of what was to be reproduced or copied.. Mr Hughes, a painter, said that about June, 1980, he moved many of his belongings from his rented pro-

perty to the defendant’s flat, and changed the address with the- banks. He, said he did not use the savings bank budget account very often.

He had authorised the defendant to make ' certain withdrawals using pre-signed withdrawal forms, but never gave her authority to sign’ forms on his behalf, or withdraw money.: : , j. . Until January this year he had no idea the withdrawals had been madei As far as he was aware the accounts were running satisfactorily.

The account books were at the defendant’s flat pretty well all the time.. He never carried the books on him, except to make a transaction.

Mr Hughes said that be-

cause' the staples on the butt of a. book were faulty, the bank issued him with another withdrawal book. He did not return the old withdrawal book, and did not know what happened to it. While he and the defendant were holidaying in Nelson between December 21, 1981, and January 2, he had only his cheque account book. He did not withdraw any money, from either of his two savings accounts while in Nelson on December 31.

He accompanied the defendant into a bank a couple of times in Nelson aS she wished to make withdrawals. He thought her account was being used. Mr Hughes said he had no idea the defendant might have been carrying out transactions on his

bank account. Detective G. R. Cairns said he interviewed the defendant in regard to the complaints. She said she had not made withdrawals on Mr Hughes’s C.S.B. account. She also denied having completed or signed any withdrawal slips on his account.

Shown • writing on two withdrawal slips on Mr Hughes’s account the defendant said it was her writing but she did not know how it came to be on Mr Hughes’s withdrawal slips. She denied she had written a “forged” withdrawal slip presented at Nelson while she and Mr Hughes were there last December. The defendant said mail had been taken from her letter box on a number of occasions.