FALSE ENTRIES IN REGISTER

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 54, 26 November 1938, Page 12

FALSE ENTRIES IN REGISTER

Second-Hand Dealer Loses

Licence

By Telegraph—Press Association. AUCKLAND, November 25.

The misspelling of the name of an article in an alleged record of tbe acceptance of property as well as in oilier papers produced was a feature of Ibe evidence in a case against a secondhand dealer, Stella Cowper, iu the Magistrates’ Court today. She was charged with purchasing two indoor bowls and a fishing rod from a person under tbe age of 16 in breach of the Second-hand Dealers Act, and she pleaded not guilty- • Detective-Sergeant Nalder said the pair of bowls were reported missing from the Methodist Sunday School Hall, Great North Road, last December and they remained uiitraecd until seen recently in the window of a city pawnshop. When police inquiries were made no record of the purchase of the bowls could be found in the register which a second-hand dealer was compelled to keep for all transactions. Evidence was given that a boy aged 13 sold the bowls and the fishing rod to buy a radio set, having been given permission to do so by bis father. Documents allegedly recording the transaction were produced, and tho handwriting of three entries was stated by accused to be hers, the boy’s, and another boy’s.

i.)n comparing tbe writing tbe magistrate, Mr. Orr Walker, said it was ull the same, and the word bowls was misspelled "boles” in each ease. “The facts point to defendant having put in these entries afterward when the police began to make inquiries, added the magistrate.

In convicting defendant, the magistrate said that when the rules of business were flagrantly broken by one who showed incapacity to carry them out it was necessary in the interests of the public that the licence should be taken away. In defendant’s ease it appeared as though she had been templed to manipulate her book’s to meet I he situation.

The magistrate cancelled defendant’s licence, and ordered her to pay costs, 18/-.