VALUELESS CHEQUES

Evening Post, Volume CXX, Issue 38, 13 August 1935, Page 11

VALUELESS CHEQUES

MAN SENT TO GAOL

Described by the police as being well known in Wellington because of his false pretences in the past, Douglas Arthur Fletcher Brewer, a motor mechanic ( aged 39, pleaded guilty before Mr. E. D. Mosley,: S.M., in the Magistrate's Court today: to two charges of issuing valueless cheques, and was sentenced to three months' imprisonment.

Brewer was charged with obtaining from Wilfred Hartley. Stinson, at Wellington, on August 1, two sacks of coal valued at 6s 4d and £1 12s 2d in money by a valueles scheque signed "Albert Anderson" drawn on ' the National Bank of New Zealand; and obtaining a cheque-book containing. twenty-four forms, valued at 4s, from the National Bank of New Zealand at Lower Hutt, on July 30, by falsely representing that a cheque for £25, drawn on the Commercial Bank of Australia, and signed "Fred Stevens," was valid.

Detective-Sergeant L. B. Revell said the accused was well known in Wellington because of his having issued so many valueless cheques in the past, and the local bank would not.'permit him to open an account. Recently he persuaded a man to open an account under the name of Stevens and several cheques were issued.

On July 1 he went to the Hutt and told the National Bank of New Zealand there that he was a motor-dealer named Anderson. He presented one of the cheques, for £25, and opened an account on the strength of that cheque. In that way he ' obtained possession of a cheque-book. ' Apart from the cheque on -which he had received the coal, two or three other valueless cheques had been issued by him, but there had been no complaints. .

. The reason for the offences that the accused had given to the police was that he had been short of money at the time, and hoped to stall off his creditors and earn sufficient to pay them.

It was not the first time the accused had adopted those means to get a cheque-book, said the' detective-ser-geant. He had' persuaded a young man named Evans to sign all the cheques in a book, and several of them were issued; but the police managed to get hold of the book before it was exhausted.

Brewer had had ten previous convictions for false pretences.

The accused was sentenced to three months' imprisonment on the first charge, and seven days' imprisonment on the second.