ALLEGED FORGERY

Evening Post, Volume CXVI, Issue 105, 31 October 1933, Page 10

ALLEGED FORGERY

COUNCILLOR CHARGED

SIGNATURE ON RECEIPT

Alleging that tho accused had forged a signature on a receipt with a view to concealing the fact that he was doing an amount of work for the Upper Hutt Borough Council sufficient to disqualify him from holding office as a councillor on that body, the Crown proceeded against Amos Howell, of Upper Hutt, at the Supreme Court today. Howell was charged with having iorged a receipt for £2 12s to the Upper Hutt Borough Council purporting to be signed by T. Johnson.

The Chief Justice (Sir Michael Myers) was on the Bench. Mr. C. Evans Scott prosecuted for the Crown, and Mr. A. J. Mazengarb appeared for the accused, who pleaded not guilty. The accused, said Mr. Evans Scott, had for many years been a member, of the Upper Hutt Borough Council. It was provided in the Municipal Corporations Act that any taember of a local body who was interested in a contract or contracts exceeding £10 in any one case or .a total of £25 "with that body became disqualified from holding office. If a person so disqualified continued to act as a councillor he was liable to a penalty of £50 for each occasion he acted as a councillor when disqualified. The accused and his wife, continued Mr. Evans Scott, were the sole proprietors of a business known .as Howell 's Motors at Uppe» Hutt.' This included a garage where repair work was carried out. In addition to the .garage business Howell himself was the sole proprietor of a blacksmith's shop situated opposite the garage. During the financial year April, 1931, to March, 1932, evidence would show that Howell, at the garage and at the blacksmith's shop, had done work to the extent of £110 for tho Upper Hutt Borough Council. That was very much, in excesi of the statutory limit.

The accounts for that work were not sent in in the accused's name, but in the name of an employee in the blacksmith's shop named Johnson. Mr. Evans Scott alleged that the signatures on the. receipts were not Johnson's, and that a receipt dated January 16, 1933,-, for £2 12s signed with the name Johnson had been written by Howell. The Borough Council, said Mr. Evans Scott, had treated the receipt as a genuine one, but the- Government auditor discovered that the signature was not Johnson's, and that Johnson had no interest in the blacksmith's shop. In evidence Thomas Harold Johnson, an employee at the blacksmith's shop, said that on one occasion Howell had told,him that he had sent an account to the Upper Hutt Borough Council in Johnson's name, Howell said that the account had been running on longer than he had intended, and it amounted to more than he was entitled to as a councillor.

In a statement to the police the ac-. cused said that' trading was very difficult, and as restrictions were placed on him in doing work for the Upper Hutt Borough Council he arranged with a man named Johnson in the blacksmith's shop and a man named Rotheray in the garage to quote for council work, and thus get over the'difficulty. As far as the receipt in question was concerned ho had signed the name Johnson because, a clerk at the council office had telephoned to him asking for a duplicate receipt as it was wanted urgently for audit purposes, the original receipt having been, mislaid. Howel^ said that he had signed the name' Johnsos in order to avoid delay.

VERDICT OF GUILTY,

No evidence for the defence was called. In his address to the jury Mr. Mazengarb contended that the receipt was not a false document because it was only a copy of a true document. There had been no attempt to imitate the signature of Johnson and on that he asked the jury to find that he had not intentionally made a false document and had not intended that it should be acted upon as genuine.

The jury returned a verdict of guilty with a strong recommendation to leniency. Sentence was deferred until later in the day. ,

SON ALSO CHARGED,

Amos Eae Howell, a son of the previous accused was then, charged with three offences of forging receipts for sums of money paid by the Upper Hutt Borough Council. The tota} amount involved was £59 Is Bd. The facts in this case were similar. It was alleged th at the accused had forged Johnson's signature twice and Rotheray's once. Mr. Evans Scott said that the accused had made; a statement in which he frankly admitted having signed the names of Johnson and Rotheray to the receipts. He. said that ho had signed the names on his father's instructions.

Evidence was still being heard at the time of going to press.