Youth signs dud cheques ‘to flee retaliation’

Press, 10 December 1983, Page 34

Youth signs dud cheques ‘to flee retaliation’

PA Auckland A youth signed false cheques totalling almost 511,000 to get money to flee from people threatening him with violence, the District Court at Auckland has heard.

Douglas Raymond Francis Roberts, aged 19, an unemployed air-brush artist, of Glen Innes, pleaded guilty before Judge Wallace to 33 charges that between October 11 and 16, with intent to defraud, he obtained various goods and services to a value of $10,878 by falsely representing that cheques signed by him were good and valid for the specified amounts.

The Court was told that soon after Roberts opened a cheque account at the Newmarket branch of the Westpac Banking Corporation the deposit of $490 was exhausted. Roberts continued to

withdraw money by presenting illegal cheques, each accompanied with his own identification card.

Defence counsel, Mr C. B. Littlewood, said Roberts was remorseful and ashamed of his actions, but there was a partial explanation. Roberts, he said, had been robbed at knifepoint in Auckland and had subsequently identified the attackers to the police.

Mr Littlewood said that in the next few days Roberts was subjected to "fairly drastic retaliation.”

He was threatened with violence and later knocked unconscious for two hours. He was treated at hospital after this assault. Mr Littlewood said Roberts was again warned and threatened that dire consequences would result if he gave evidence against the people who robbed him. Roberts then hatched a

“naive plan.” He started to sign cheques to get money to leave Auckland and flee his intimidators. Mr Littlewood said Roberts had confessed to the police when caught. Thus two-thirds of the property he bought had been recovered.

The Judge said it was a remarkable sequence of events. She said that at first she was inclined to impose a prison sentence. She had decided, however, to sentence Roberts to 160 hours of community service, order him to'make restitution in full, and to undergo supervision by the Probation Service for two years. As Roberts was being sentenced, Mr Littlewood told the Judge that the defendant had lost all his personal belongings during a burglary of his home while he was in Mount Eden Prison.