VALUELESS CHEQUE

Evening Post, Volume CV, Issue 99, 28 April 1928, Page 26

VALUELESS CHEQUE

PAYMENT l-'OR A SUIT t A few clays after ho had been refused permission to take away a suit of clothes from a tailor's shop without payment, Valentino Charles Blake returned with a valueless cheque for US and was successful in obtaining tho suit. The bogus nature of tho cheque was soon discovered, and Blake, who is a butcher, aged 32, was arrested. Yesterday he pleaded guilty to tho offence in the Magistrate's Court before Mr. E. Page, S.M. Chief-Detectivo Ward said that inquiries had been made at the Hastings bank on which the cheque was drawn, and it had been found that the accused's balance was only Cs 3d. Altogether tho accused had issued nine valueless cheques since January last, and he appeared to have a mania for the practice. A sentence of one month's imprisonment was imposed. Blake also pleaded guilty to having failed to comply with the terms of his release ori probation. The Probation' Officer (Mr. T. P. Mills) stated that Blake was granted probation at Dunedin in 1926 for threo years on six charges of false pretences. Since that time he had committed several breaches of his probationary license, and was recently sentenced at Palmerston North to one month's imprisonment on each of five charges of false pretences, tho terms to be concurrent. On this charge Blake was sentenced to three months' imprisonment, to be concurrent with the term imposed on the first charge.