WAR PENSIONER IN TROUBLE

Dominion, Volume 21, Issue 188, 11 May 1928, Page 8

WAR PENSIONER IN TROUBLE

FINED FOR MAKING FALSE STATEMENT

Dominion Special Service.

Christchurch, May 10.

Thomas Henry Hodgin pleaded guilty in the Magistrate’s Court this morning to a charge of making a false statement to the War Pensions Officer. Mr. E. D. Mosley, S.M., was on the bench. Chief Detective Carroll said that accused received an economic pension which depended upon his having no money in the bank, no property, and no investments. Accused made a statement to the officer in charge that he had no such money, property or investments. The amount he had received through the economic pension was £l7l. “He actually has over £lOO in the Post Office Savings Bank and over £6OO in the Bank of New Zealand,” the chief detective continued, “therefore he was not entitled to that £171.”

“Since accused got his pension in 1917 he has been fully incapacitated,” said counsel for accused (Mr. Graveston). “He has made no money from earnings or from any outside source. He.has been getting £l5 3s. 4d. per month as pension, and all the money he has has been saved from his pension. He has been three times in the sanatorium, once for 18 months, and once at Hamner Springs. When he came out of hospital each time he found the pension had been banked up. What was he expected to do with it?”

“Pay hospital expenses,” suggested the Magistrate.

“He told the Pensions Department he was saving up to start a business,” counsel continued. “He has not been in employment for ten years.” In the box accused snid that he had contracted T.B. in 1917, and had been sent back. First his pension had been £2 10c. per week, and then £3 10s. per week. The economic pension was £1 10s. per week.

Accused was convicted and fined £lO, in default one month’s imprisonment, and ordered to refund £l7l to the Pensions Department.