AN AUDACIOUS SCHEME

Dominion, Volume 16, Issue 119, 5 February 1923, Page 4

AN AUDACIOUS SCHEME

NIPPED IN THE BUD

JUDGE PONDERING

PENALTY

Percy Dowling Hawkins, William Holland Makin, and Leonard Walter Makin, who pleaded guilty recently in tho Magistrate’s Court to eighteen charges~of forgery, rendered possible by the theft of Government cheques and papers, which, had their scheme been carried out, would have involved the fraudulent securing of £11,739 9s. Id., camo before His Honour Mr. Justice Chapman fclr sentence at the Supremo Court on Saturday. Mr. A. who appeared on be- ' half of Hawkins, alluded to his war service. Hawkins had come back with the rank of staff sergeant-major, which showed that he was I worthy of trust. Mr. Justice Chapman: A man should, bo worthy of confidence until he has proved himself unworthy of it. Mr. Blair: Hawkins was not the originator of the scheme. Mr. P. S. K. Macassey (for the Crown): William Holland Makin, I am told, was tho originator of the scheme. Mr. Blair pleaded that . Hawkins when the others had separated to other districts to work the scheme by cheques and papers on various banks, had destroyed the cheques and papers in his own possession, and had taken no further part in the scheme Had the others done the same there would have boon no forgeries. From the time he had received the rubber stamps, papers, etc., he had decided t<i have no more to do with it. Tho Makins were arrested, but no suspicion was entertained by the police in regard to Hawkins. It was only when suspicion fell upon others in the Government employ that Hawkins spoke to his father about the scheme. He a-sked that tho case’be not treated as one for imprisonment. Mr. L. Etherington (New Plymouth) appeared on behalf of the other prisoners. All three prisoners, he said, had given the greatest possible assistance to the police. Leonard (the elder) Makin was in Canada in 1914 and joined tho Canadian forces, not being demobilised until .1918. Ho was now married, and his. wife was in poor health. William Makin had purchased a farm in New Zealand for £lO,OOO, paving £4OO down. 'There was a second mortgage for £3OOO. Mr. Macassey said that some of the forged cheques were presented, and called evidence that the three prisoners were present at W. Makin’s farm when a Discharged soldiers’ Settlement cheque for £3O suggested the scheme to William Makin, who admitted suggesting it to tho others. Hawkins admitted making out tho bodies of the cheques, signatures to which were forged by the Makins, who opened accounts in fictitious names. William Makin opened thirteen accounts nb banks between Marton and Now Plymouth, and Leonard Makin three accounts in the Wairarapa and two ii Palmerston North. Hawkins was to have opened accounts in the Hawke’s Bay district. To Mr. Blair: Tlie police had not tho slightest idea of Hawkins’s idenHis Honour said he would deal with the prisoners early in the week.