Mother promised daughter a loan

Press, 25 August 1988, Page 12

Mother promised daughter a loan

A woman facing trial on eight individual and eight joint cheque fraud charges completed more than a full day in the witness box late yesterday, giving evidence in her defence or being cross-examined. Her mother, a Christchurch landlord, said she had promised her daughter a loan of $40,000 and was waiting for her daughter to call for the money to be deposited into her account.

Her daughter said she expected, when she wrote a number of cheques, that her mother’s funds already were being deposited. The defendant, Tracey Teresa Knox, aged 25 (Mr C. M. Ruane), is charged jointly with Brent James Burbery, aged 25 (Mr D. J; R. Holdemess), on eight charges of using cheques, amounting to $26,850 in all, to obtain a financial advantage. Knox is also charged with eight other offences of using cheques, amounting to $20,500, to obtain a financial advantage. Burbery also faces three separate charges of using withdrawal vouchers amounting to $B7OO to obtain a financial advantage, and a charge of obtaining credit by fraud for accommodation at Quality Inn, Auckland. The charges, all of which are denied, relate to offences allegedly committed in Christchurch and several centres in the North Island, between April and June last year. The trial, before Judge Fraser and a jury, will continue today, the fourth day.

When opening the defence case for Knox on Tuesday, Mr Ruane said the defence was that Knox had not acted dishonestly in making the various transactions. She knew funds were becoming available from her mother to cover the transactions, at the, time she wrote the cheques. In evidence, Knox said she had known Burbery since late 1986. They had a business and personal relationship. At the time they met she had < financial trouble because of a property transaction.

Burbery advanced her $40,000. In March and early April last year Burbery became insistent on wanting the money repaid, but

she had to borrow to repay him. She arranged to get a loan from her mother. Her mother had sold a property in January and had $70,000 available. Because her mother had lent her considerable sums of money in the past, Knox said, she asked her mother for two loans of $20,000, a week apart. She was originally to receive her mother’s funds on May 1, but the date was brought forward to April 28 so that cheques Knox had written would not be dishonoured. Knox said her mother had lent various sums of money to her over the years. She told of various house purchases she had made since 1983, with some of the funds for their purchase initially lent by her mother.

She told her mother she needed the money by April 28, but did not tell her she was in overdraft as it was rather embarrassing.

On April 23, Knox said, she made a number of deposits from her Trustbank Canterbury to her ANZ Bank account. Knox detailed various bank account transactions she made from April 23.

She knew her mother weis going to advance the $40,000 in two sums.

It was not until she received her mail in Auckland that she became aware that her mother had not deposited the money into her account as she had asked her.

During cross-examina-tion by Mr Neave, Knox was asked about evidence of a bank officer of the National Bank in Jean Batten Place, Auckland.

This evidence was to the effect that Knox must have told her a deposit in her account which had yet to be cleared, was either cash or a bank or solicitor’s cheque. Knox said she did not specifically recall mentioning that it was cash or anything. She just simply showed the deposit to her, she supposed. It was up to the bank to check what type of deposit it was through the branch where she deposited, and see if the funds were cleared.

They cleared the funds. “If they did not clear the funds then I would have been aware that

something had gone wrong.

“They cleared the funds for me and it is their mistake that I am here now.”

“They had a computer system that they relied on for everybody who used the bank, and I was relying on that as much as they were. They cleared the funds,” Knox said. Knox’s mother, Iris Patricia Johnson, a landlord, gave evidence of owning 14 properties and of selling one early last year, for which she had net proceeds of $70,000. Her daughter asked during April to borrow $40,000, in two instalments of $20,000.

The witness believed this was for her daughter’s purchase of a property, and to repay debts.

Mrs Johnson said she was supposed to put $20,000 into her daughter’s account on April 28. That day she had a doctor’s appointment for a regular three-months check-up after an illness she had recovered from.

She did not go to the bank that day. She believed her daughter would call and collect her and they would get the money and deposit it in her account.

She did not know which account it was to go into. Her daughter did not call. “I just left it to her,” Mrs Johnson said.

Her daughter telephoned from Auckland later, and told of her travelling there on holiday.

They did not talk about money, but about the holiday and about her (the witness’s) husband’s illness at that time.

Referring to her daughter’s having written cheques on her Trustbank account, Mrs Johnson said that if she had been aware of her writing these she would have deposited the money into her account. She said she would not have been pleased, but she would have deposited funds, and definitely the $20,000 her daughter was expecting. Asked if there was any reason why she would advance her daughter such large sums, Mrs Johnson said she thought her daughter showed some business acumen and she wanted to help her.

“She was good in the beginning.”