FALSE DECLARATION

Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 69, 14 December 1935, Page 13

FALSE DECLARATION

Benefits Under Unemployment Act WAR PENSIONER’S CRIME By Telegraph—Press Association. Auckland, December 13. A maximum fine of £2O was imposed by the magistrate, Mr. W. R. McKean, in the Magistrate's Court to-day on George Alexander Mitchell, 59 years of age, a war pensioner, who pleaded guilty to making a false declaration for the purpose of obtaining benefit under the Unemployment Act. The police said that Mitchell, a single man, in 1931 registered as an unemployed married man with a wife and three children. From then on he received various benefits. In 1932 when an inspector from the department called on him Mitchell said that his wife and family were in Brisbane. Asked for evidence he produced two letters purport' ing to come from his wife stating that she was receiving money. Later he produced numerous butts of postal notes .which he said he had sent to his wife in Australia. The department noted the serial numbers of the postal notes, and later discovered that they had been cashed in Auckland. Interviewed by a detective lie admitted the charge, and said he had been living with a woman, who wrote the letters. This woman died in August last. Between 1931 and 1935 Mitchell wrongfully obtained £2Ol from the department, and filled in 22 false statements.

“The lady I was living with was very sick,” was all that the defendant said to the magistrate. “Do you think that an excuse?” asked Mr. McKean. “This is as bad a case as anyone cotfld imagine,” he continued, "and such a fraud is difficult to discover.” Defendant was refused time to pay, the magistrate stating that if he could not pay he would have to take it out in jail.