FALSE COMPLAINTS

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 66, 10 December 1938, Page 7

FALSE COMPLAINTS

Effect On Innocent Persons . MAGISTRATES’ COURT CASES “These false complaints are serious because not only do they take up the valuable lime of police officers, but they also have the effect of casting suspicion on innocent persons,” said Detective-Sergeant \V. IL Murray, in the Magistrates’ Court, Wellington, yesterday. Mr. J. L. .Stout, S.M., was on the Bench.

The detective-sergeant made the remarks when Cecil Wilfred Norris, en- ' gineer, aged 25, was charged with making a false statement to the police ai- > leging that he had lost £7O in bttnk- ! notes.. ’ Ou December 2, accused called at the Taranaki Street Police Station and made a complaint to a constable about the loss of £7O in a shop in Cuba Street that evening. Later, when interviewed by two detectives, he confessed that the complaint was bogus. He said that he had recently been married and that his wife’s people were under the impression that he had saved approximately £lOO. On Friday he was supposed to draw this out of tile Savings Bank. Actually his total credit in the bank was very meagre. To get out ot his difficulty be invented the story of the loss. He bad no previous criminal history. Accused said be had lost his head and did not know what he was doing. He asked for the suppression of bis name. . The magistrate imposed a fine of £- and refused the application for the suppression of the name. False Pretence. A sentence of 14 days’ imprisonment on each charge, the terms to be concurrest, was imposed on James Henry Lawson, when he appeared on four ■ charges of obtaining money from the Employment Promotion Fund' by a false pretence. Accused bad been in receipt of accident compensation from a shipping company, said Detective-Sergeant AA . It. Murray. He accepted a lump sum in settlement, and subsequently reregistered at the Employment Bureau and applied for sickness benefits. He obtained sums totalling £B/12/- as sickness benefit, by stating .that he was in receipt of no other income. He was seen in Ngaio canvassing for the sale of goods. When taxed by the Labour Department he denied that he had been selling goods, and aggravated what he had been doing by going before a justice of the peace and making a statement to that effect. He was subsequently seen by detectives and confessed that he had been selling goods and had made on an average about . £1 a week. ' | “The bureau looks on this offence seriously, because it is by no means uncommon,” said the detective-ser-geant. Gang of Hoodlums. “They are three of a gang of hoodlums who give trouble by conygregating at Miramar Junction,” said Sub-Inspector D. A. McLean, when three youths appeared on charges of using indecent and obscene language. Defendants were Gordon Smith, motor mechanic, who was charged with using indecent language, and Henry McGee, photographer, and Erie Leslie Fisher, who were charged with using obscene language. . Each defendant was fined £2 in default 14 days’’ Imprisonment. McGee and Fisher were each ordered to come up for sentence if called on within 12 months on a charge of being found without lawful excuse, on the premises of the Seatoun Bowling Club, but in circumstances which did not i show intention to commit a crime. I Other Cases. For the theft of 53 milk jugs, valued at £l/6/6, the property of Alphonsus Joseph Casey, Edward Harold Cole, farmer, aged 31, was lined £2 and or- j dered to pay costs. An order was made I for the return of the property. Clarence Cyril Watts, labourer, was convicted and discharged on a charge of the theft of a fibre suitcase and its contents, of a total value of £7. Detective-Sergeant I*. Doyle said that accused was at present on his way to a Borstal institution to serve ti term of two years. Most of the stolen property had been recovered. Antonio Stella was lined £2 and ordered to pay costs for unfairly packing eight eases of spinach. David McKenzie was lined £1 and ordered to pay costs for smoking in a railway carriage in which smoking was prohibited. A sentence of 1 4 days’ imprisonment witli hard labour, was imposed on Andrew Baldwin Samuel, labourer, aged 30, for the theft of a rim, tyre, and tube, valued at £4/7/6. Samuel pleaded guilty.