SOLDIERS' LOANS

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 106, 1 November 1923, Page 8

SOLDIERS' LOANS

AFFAIRS OF REPATRIATION DEPARTMENT

CHARGE AGAINST HODGINS.

Another case arising out of certain happenings at the office of the Repatriation Department came before Mr. Justice Roed and a jury of twelve at the Supreme Court to-day, when Harry Patrick Hodgins appeared to answer charges ot forging a furniture inventory and a ".treasury voucher and acting on the same as if they were genuine. He pleaded not guilty.

„ r- P- S. K. Macassey appeared for the Grown, and the prisoner was represented by Mr. H. F. O'Leary. Mr. P. U Peters was foreman of the jury. In opening the case to the jury, Mr. Macassey said that under the Repatriation Act, 1918, a Repatriation Board was set up in Wellington for the purpose of rendering financial assistance to returned soldiers. The object of such financial assistance was to set soldiers up in business or to assist them in obtaming furniture with which the set up a home. In order to obtain these loans, an applicant had either to- be married or about to be married. The furniture loans first amounted to £50, but were later increased to £75. Applicants had to submit their claims to an interviewing officer, who, in the present case, was Mr. Coull, and the board, m coming to a decision, acted on the recommendation of that officer. Hodgins joined the Department in 1919, and be--IQ91 6 asfjstar^ accountant on Ist April, IX4I. Hodgins was in charge of the ledger cards, which showed the various repayments made by the applicant in satisfaction of his loan. It was not part o^ his duty to have anything to do with the applications for loans until such time as they had been granted by the board, and repayments commenced. In the present ease he was charged with forging certain papers in connection with an application by a returned soldier named W. B. Burns. Burns lived with the accused and another man at a bach at 11, lnorndon quay. Burns would be called and he would tell the jury that at no .time had he applied for a loan. It would 'be shown that the papers in connection with the loan were bogus A singular feature of the case was that repayments on the loan in question were actually made, and it would be proved that same of the repayments were made by Hodgins. on.-the lines of that called in the Magistrate's Court was then tendered by the Crown Prosecutor. (Proceeding.),