BIG THEFTS ALLEGED

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 98, 28 April 1931, Page 10

BIG THEFTS ALLEGED

BANK CLERK CHARGED

PLEA OF NOT GUILTY

(By Telegraph.—Press. Association.) CHRISTCHUECH, This Day. Robert Andrew Stewart, aged 41, a bank clerk, employed at the National Bank, pleaded nofc guilty this morning to the theft of £1106,. the property of Pierce Brothers, and was committed for trial. •. ■.. , ' i John" Pierce, a grocer, said that the accused, who lived near* him, had been entrusted with the receipts of the shop every Tuesday and Saturday for banking, witness receiving back the counterfoils of the slips. This month .witness received a statement from the. bank concerning his account, showing that it was overdrawn by £228. He queried this, and discovered .that £1105 had not been paid in. The police handed in a statement in which' the accused said that owing to sickness he ; got deeper and deeper into debt, and to retrieve his position resorted to gambling on races. It was alleged by the police that the accused had admitted the- defalcations. ■

The Postmaster-General lias written to the Petorie Borough Council declining to house the town clock in the new Petone Post Office building. The inclusion of a tower, he wrote, would involve drastic alterations-in the plans o£ ,the building, and would add considerably to the cost, and there were other difficulties that had made the Department decide not to have clock towers on any more Post Oflice buildings. ■