Prison for trotting magazine fraud

Press, 16 July 1982, Page 20

Prison for trotting magazine fraud

Prison terms amounting to four months were imposed in the District Court yesterday on a salesman, Paul Robert Boby, aged 40, for four offences arising from a race publication venture which he undertook last year when he was an undischarged bankrupt.

The defendant had been convicted by Judge Paterson, after a defended hearing early this month, of a charge of false pretence relating to his ordering from the Christchurch Printing Company, the printing of 2500 copies of a magazine. "Trotting World," by falsely representing that he ■ was Ron Clayton and represented the firm of Murray Peter Enterprises, between September 11 and November 7 last year; and convicted of three breaches of the Insolvency Act by carrying on business when an undischarged bankrupt without permission of the Official Assignee or the Court, unlawfully misleading

the Official Assignee in an oral statement made to him; and obtaining credit of $5970 from the printing firm without first informing it that he was an undischarged bankrupt.

On the false pretence charge he was jailed for three months, and on the first Insolvency Act offence he received a one-month jail term, cumulative on the major sentence. On the other two offences he received concurrent one-month jail sentences.

The prison sentence is to be followed by a year’s probation. with a special condition that he pay restitution, up to the sum of $5970. to the printing firm. Defence counsel (Mr R. Blake) submitted in mitigation of penalty yesterday that the defendant's problem had arisen from his attempt to get into and stay, in the world of advertising, a field in which he was inept. He was, however, a com-

petent signwriter and intended to return to this career.

Although the probation report indicated it was unrealistic to hope for full compensation by the defandant to the printing firm, he was ' enthusiastic" towards entering into a system to reimburse this company for the cost of printing “Trotting World."

The Judge told the defendant that he had obtained a large sum in credit from the printing firm, $5970. with no prospect of paying it other than a gamble on the results of the venture.

He had been in breach of the Insolvency Act and was no newcomer to the Court, particularly in regard to false pretence matters.

The Judge said he hoped that the defendant’s “promised reform," expressed in a letter to the Court, was genuine and would be put into effect,