Woman guilty on 39 forgery counts

Press, 11 August 1982, Page 14

Woman guilty on 39 forgery counts

A jury in the District Court yesterday found a woman guilty of 39 charges of forging savings bank withdrawal slips for sums totalling $2760. from accounts operated by a man who was living with her. The defendant. Marilyn Ruby Jayet. aged 32. a solo mother, had denied the forgery charges, and 39 alternative charges of using withdrawal forms to obtain a pecuniary advantage. After the jury's finding, reached after a retirement of an hour and three-quarters. Judge Fraser remanded the defendant on bail to August 25 for sentence.

The,trial lasted two days, and Crown evidence was completed yesterday mornm Mr B. M. Stanaway appeared for the Crown. Mrs D. J. Orchard appeared for the defendant. One defence witness was called.

The Crown's case was that the defendant had forged and presented 38 withdrawal slips for amounts totalling $2510 from the Canterbury Savings Bank account operated bv the complainant, Craig Beavan Hughes, and one withdrawal slip for $250 from his Bank of New South Wales account.

Mr Hughes had lived at the defendant's address during the period of the alleged offences, between December, 1980. and January this year. A police document examiner had testified that the signatures on the withdrawal forms were forgeries, and he concluded that the defendant was responsible for all the questioned writing on the withdrawal forms.

Outlining the defence case yesterday Mrs Orchard said the defendant denied making any of the withdrawals from the accounts, and the Crown

could not prove she did

The defence relied on the statements by the defendant to the police in ’which she emphatically denied making the withdrawals. Joyce May Jayet. former mother-in-law of the defendant. said she w'as with the defendant all day and half the night on one of the days she was alleged to have withdrawn money, and she did not go near a (C.S.B. branch.

Mrs Jayet said her daugh-ter-in-law was very honest.

In her final address Mrs Orchard said the Crown’s case had been entirely circumstantial. In order to convict the defendant it would be necessary to exclude any other reasonable possibility. Mrs Orchard said Crown evidence had been ambiguous and the possibility of some other person's being guilty bf the forgeries, and presenting the cheques, could not be excluded.