BANE CLERK'S LAPSE

Evening Post, Volume CV, Issue 147, 23 June 1928, Page 26

BANE CLERK'S LAPSE

PROBATION .REFUSED William Turnbull Hume, a clerk, aged 2S years, appeared for sentence before Mr. Justice Reed in the Supreme. Court yesterday afternoon for the theft of £170 as a servant of the Lower Hutt branch of the Bank of New Zealand. Mr. H. H. Cornish, who appeared for Hume, said Hume was a young married man, 28 years of age, and had a family of one child. He had come from a respectable home, and had had good school and professional records. ■ He had been a footballer, and had received an injury to his head. That may have had an effect. The doctor's report was not positive, but it was known that head injuries were sometimes followed by a loosening of the moral fibre. Hume got behind at the counter, owed money, took other people's money, and started gambling to try and retrieve his position. Once having started, he found it impossible to check himself. In view of Hume's previous good record and the fact that the money was to be repaid, Mr. Cornish asked that Hume be given the benefit of probation. His Honour said that had he to deal only with Hume he could accede to counsel's request; but his duties extended a great deal further than that. He had to consider that there was'a largo number of young men occupying, positions of trust in banking and commercial houses. There might bo some at the present moment just on the verge of starting a crime of this sort. If it became known that if youths' parents or friends were well enough off to refund money and the accused would get probation, then-many men might be ruined by taking^he risk. People would always hope in gambling transactions, but it was the first steps that counted. If undue leniency was' extended it would really bo putting, temptation in the way of others. Hume"was;ordered to b,e detained for reformative ' purposes' for twelve months. Mr. Cornish raised the question of the suppression of the accused's name, stating he would ask for suppression on account of Hume's father. His Honour: "I cannot doit."