Guilty verdict in fraud conspiracy

Press, 7 September 1989, Page 16

Guilty verdict in fraud conspiracy

A jury in the District Court yesterday found a man guilty of a conspiracy with others to defraud two banks by altering a bank cheque from $18.50 to $18,500. The trial of Curtis Robert Reeves, aged 25, lasted a day and a half. He denied the charge of conspiring with Peter Robert Elliott and others to defraud Trust Bank Canterbury and Postßank, Ltd, of $13,981.50. The conspiracy involved agreeing to tender a Postßank cheque which had been fraudulently altered from $18.50 to $18,500, thereby to enable the withdrawal of $14,000 by means of a bank cheque made payable to C. R. Reeves.

On the jury’s verdict,

reached after a retirement of four hours, Judge Erber remanded Reeves on bail to September 21 for sentence.

Mr Graeme Panckhurst appeared for the Crown. Mr Rupert Glover, for Reeves, called no defence evidence. The Crown had contended, and called evidence; that Reeves called at a Postßank branch on March 6 to obtain a bank cheque for $18.50.

Another man called at a Trust Bank branch the next day and deposited the cheque, which had been altered to the higher figure, into an account in the name of Kelly. The same day he sought to withdraw $14,000 from the account at another Trust Bank

branch. Bank staff ascertained the cheque had been altered and when the man called, after making three telephone calls about the availability of the funds, he was arrested by the police. His identity was established as Mr Elliott. Mr Elliott, who was charged and convicted of an offence relating to the fraud, gave evidence that he had lent Reeves sums of money in a hotel, and once had been paid back $18.50. He had asked Reeves for a bank cheque. He saw this as a way of carrying out the bank fraud which an Auckland man, whom he owed a favour, had devised and asked him to assist in by using another man’s ac-

count and bankbook. The Auckland man had been accompanied by a large man, a “heavy.” Reeves told a detective, when interviewed, that he did not know the cheque was going to be altered. He was not involved in any plan to defraud the banks.

Mr Panckhurst, in his final address to jurors, said Mr Elliott, the Crown’s principal witness and the central figure in the bank fraud, had proved a totally unreliable witness. He had lied in evidence and changed his story as he went along, to shield Reeves, he said. Mr Panckhurst said that although Mr Elliott had not advanced the Crown’s case, neither had he ad-

variced the case for Reeves. . - -.

He referred to matters in Mr Elliott’s evidence which were corroborated by other evidence. These included his having given Reeve’s telephone number to a bank officer, and writing Reeves's.name on the bank withdrawal form as the payee for' an intended $14,000 fraudulent withdrawal.

Mr. Glover, addressing jurors, said Mr Elliott had not told the court what the Crown believed he would.

He admitted haying lied previously to coVer himself, and claimed, he was then, arid still was, afraid of the man from' Auckland.' ■

Mr Glover submitted

•that, no matter how much /•Mr Elliott’s evidence was '. believed, there was not a ■-shred of evidence of a conspiracy involving Reeves. ? -

Mr Elliott had given Reeves’s telephone number to the bank officer purely put of an association, in that Reeves had paid him the cheque.

Mr Glover said Mr El-

liott had betrayed Reeves three times — by using him to obtain a bank cheque, by using his telephone number, and by using his name as payee on a withdrawal form for $14,000,' /. ■

Counsel submitted that jurors would be left in at least a reasonable doubt, ,on the evidence, on any involvement by Reeves.