False name used to collect dole for five years

Press, 29 May 1985, Page 6

False name used to collect dole for five years

No explanation was offered by a man who obtained ?29,401 in unemployment benefits during a period of five years using a false name. In the District Court yesterday Hamish Keith McDougall, aged 30, a sickness beneficiary (Mr S. C. Barker), admitted giving false particulars to an officer of the Social Welfare Department for the purpose of obtaining the benefit. Detective Sergeant B. M. Roswell said the unemployment benefit was granted in March, 1979, and was continued up to April, this year. The offending came to light after the defendant was recognised under a different name by a Post Office teller. McDougall was in receipt of a sickness benefit under

his own name, as well as the unemployment benefit. Compensation of $29,401 was sought, said Sergeant Roswell. McDougall also admitted and was convicted by Judge Cadenhead on a charge of stealing a book from Whitcoull’s New Brighton. On both offences he was remanded in custody to June 6 for a probation report and sentence. On 42 other charges of fraud involving $59,000, the defendant was remanded in custody to July 30 for the taking of depositions. The police say these offences took place at Wellington, Hutt, Christchurch, and Nelson between May and November, last year. WOUNDING OFFENCE A second man charged with breaking into a Radley

Street house and wounding the male occupant, aged 75, on May 15, pleaded guilty.

Neil Barton Isherwood, aged 22, unemployed (Mr E. Bedo), was convicted and remanded in custody for sentence in the High Court on June 10. Isherwood was also convicted of driving while disqualified on Barbadoes Street on May 20. The initial charges of burglary and aggravated wounding were yesterday replaced by indictable charges. A co-offender in these two charges, Craig Leonard Murphy, was convicted on Monday. He was remanded in custody for sentence in the High Court next week. STOLE CANNABIS Suppression was granted, on the application of the police prosecutor, of the name of the woman from whose garden Ben Pehimona Tairakena stole two cannabis plants.

Tairakena admitted the offence which took place on March 12. He was convicted

and remanded on bail to June 6.

Sergeant Roswell said the defendant was found by the police in Hunter Terrace at 4 a.m. on March 12 carrying two cannabis plants more than 2m high. Tairakena told the police, that he had stolen them from a property in Malcolm Avenue. At the address the police found two freshly dug holes among tomato plants in the garden. No explanation was offered by the defendant for taking the plants, said Sergeant Roswell. PERIODIC DETENTION Periodic detention for five months was the sentence given to a youth earlier convicted of indecently assaulting a woman. John Robert Greer, aged 18, unemployed, had admitted grabbing at the thighs of a woman, aged 23, as she was entering her drive in Armagh Street on the night of November 28, last year. Counsel, Mr W. Rosenberg, submitted that it was not the worst case of its type and that his client did not really know what he was doing at the time.