FALSE ENTRY

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 95, 23 April 1931, Page 15

FALSE ENTRY

IN BANK PASS BOOK

YOUNG MAN'S OFFENCE

Remarking that the circumstances of the caso wore somewhat unusual, Mr. E. Page, S.M., ordered tho suppression of the name of a man who pleaded guilty at the Magistrate's Court yesterday to a charge of making a false document with intent that it should bo act-

eel. upon as gonuiuo, thereby committing forgery. The accused, who was committed to the Supreme Court for sentence, was admitted to bail on a bond of £50 with one surety of £50. William G. B. Patterson, a cleric in the Post Office Savings Bank, said that on 25th March a pass book was_ presented for the purpose of making a withdrawal. In the course oi! balancing the book ho found that a deposit by cheque for £10 15s was not shown on the Department's ledger card. A search was made for the deposit slip for that entry, and it was found that there was none. The date stamp on the pass' book was not a Post Offleo date stamp, and the entry of £10 15s was not written in the hand of any o± the officers in the office. Cross-examined by counsel for the accused, witness said that :thcre would have been no possibility of the owner of the pass book drawing against that entry, and it was a matter that was easily detected. Detectivo Murray said he interviewed the accused on 4th April, and he eventually admitted that ho had received a cheque for £10 15s from his mother for the purpose of paying it into her Post Office Savings Bank account. . Instead of doing this he had cashed the cheque and used the money to pay for certain motor-car repairs. In order to make it clear that he had deposited the money into his mother's account he had made the false entry into the bank book and had stamped it with a date stamp.

• Counsel for-the accused said he was a very young man and was his widowod mother's only s,on. For twelve months prior to November he had been out of work. He was at present in employment, however, and counsel was sure that if his name was published he would bo discharged from his job. His explanation of the offence was that when he was driving his mother's car he had a collision with another car and both were damaged. He did not want tho fact to come to his mother's notice, and ho misappropriated the money and used it to settle the account owing for- the repair work on the car. He had no money at that time as he had previously paid all his money to his mother with the exception of a small amount which ho kept for pocket money.