PENSIONER BEFORE COURT

Dominion, Volume 22, Issue 266, 6 August 1929, Page 12

PENSIONER BEFORE COURT

o MAGISTRATE’S DIFFICULTY REGARDING DECISION By Telegraph—Press Association. Dunedin, August 5. James Whitlaw Ramsay appeared on remand in the Magistrate’s Court to-day before Mr. H. IV. Bundle, S.M., on a charge of making a false statement under the Pensions Act in that he did not disclose all the moneys that were coming to him. Chief-Detective Cameron said that the officer in charge of the local Pensions branch had been advised by the head office to withhold £1 a week which had hitherto been paid to Mrs. Ramsay. There was no mention of restitution. Defendant would now receive £3 per week as pension. Mr. Calvert, for defendant, suggested that the Department, knowing Ramsay was a railway servant, might have made more searching inquiries. As it was, Ramsay contended that the money lying with the Railway Department was his own, and thought he was not bound to disclose it. The Pensions Department apparently thought he was only a casual railway servant, and the question of superannuation did not come into it. Defendant’s status was 75 per cent, disabled, so that it was almost impossible for him to work. He was a South African war veteran, and had also served during the last war. The Department’s desire to have circulated that all sources of income must be disclosed had been well served by this case. The Magistrate said that it was due to pensioners to disclose fully in their applications the receipt and source of all moneys which were received. It was not done in this case, with the result that the large sum of £650 was over-paid. Taking into consideration the physical infirmities of defendant, it was impossible for the Court to make any satisfactory decision in all respects. Defendant would be convicted and ordered to come up for sentence if called upon within five years 20s. a week to be deducted off either his or his wife’s pension; leave to be reserved to Pensions Department ,to make application for further reduction at any time within five years.