Periodic detention for running bogus raffle

Press, 25 August 1988, Page 12

Periodic detention for running bogus raffle

Periodic detention for six months, coupled with reparation of $1936, was the sentence imposed on a man earlier convicted of opening three student bank accounts to obtain overdraft facilities, and printing bogus raffle tickets, to finance a proposed holiday in Australia.

In the District Court yesterday Hamish Owen Mcßoberts, aged 19, a night auditor (Mr B. S. McLaughlan), was told by Judge Hay that he was alarmed by the sale of the bogus raffle tickets.

Mcßoberts had earlier admitted three charges of forging student account applications in another student’s name, and by selling raffle tickets in the name of the Canterbury Sports Association fraudulently obtained $5OO in cash.

The raffle fraud, which offered a variety of prizes, including a trip to the Seoul Olympics, came to light when no results appeared in the local newspapers.

Mr McLaughlin suggested that his client’s

desire to be independent was the cause of his misfortune.

Mcßoberts, who left home to go flatting, had repeatedly shunned offers of assistance from family and friends as he believed such assistance to be an admission of failure, said Mr McLaughlin.

The defendant told police he had planned to repay the banks. MORPHINE CHARGES

Bail was opposed for a sickness beneficiary facing charges of manufacturing and possessing morphine. Bruce Steven Rowlands, aged 27 (Ms J. Farish), was remanded in custody until tomorrow.

The accused collapsed in the dock and had to be carried back in the cells by a police officer. PERIODIC DETENTION A man who acted as a director of two companies within five years of being convicted of crimes of dishonesty and without the permission of the court, was sentenced to periodic detention for four months. Graeme Hirst Horner,

aged 24, a property manager (Mr B. H. Frampton), admitted having been a director of Property Stock, Ltd, and Boxtel Developments, between May 18 and July 29. Both charges were laid under the companies act. Mr Frampton said the two private companies acted as letting agents for residential properties. When Horner accepted the directorship he had not been aware that he was committing an offence, he said. The police fraud squad was holding his client’s personal papers. They had been through these and, said Mr Frampton, there was no suggestion of any illegal or fraudulent activities involved.

Horner, he said, was now divesting himself of his management positions with these companies. To a question from the Judge, Sergeant W. P. Creasey said the matters came to light as a result of police inquiries in the North Island.

The sergeant said he had also been informed

that the other directors in the two companies had resigned and that -as a result several people were now in debt.

The Judge also ordered Horner to pay $lB5 in outstanding fines within 28 days. SUPERVISION

A man who stole $6736 from his employer because he had become addicted to morphine after being involved in a near fatal accident, was sentenced to supervision for 12 months.

In addition, Robin Barry Burrows, aged 24, unemployed (Mr David Stringer), was ordered to pay reparation of $1635, Mr Stringer said a number of fresh cheques to replace those stolen had been sent to the defendant’s former employer, Smiths City, Ltd. Burrows had earlier pleaded guilty to stealing a cash-bag containing cash and cjieques to a value of $5700, on July 22; and with the theft of $1036 in cash from the till on 12 separate occasions between August, last year, and last month.