CAR COMPETITION

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 48, 26 February 1937, Page 11

CAR COMPETITION

OPENING OF DEFENCE

FINANCIAL DEALINGS

Financial dealings connected with the conduct of a petrol-consumption skill test for which a new car was offered as a prize were described in the Supreme Court today by one of the three men standing trial on five charges of false pretences. The accused are Harold Fairchild-Pobar, an agent, Bertram Egley, a company secretary, and Hannath NoeJ Blake Marshall, a company director. The main allegation by the Crown was that the representation to purchasers of tickets in the competition that a new* car. was as a prize was false because the car was mortgaged and was being used. Today was the fifth day of the trial.

Mr. Justice Johnston presided. The Crown Prosecutor (Mr; W. H. Cunningham), with him Mr. C. Evans-Scott, conducted the prosecution; Mr. H. F. O'Leary, K.C., with him Mr. T. P. McCarthy, appeared for Marshall; Mr A. H. Macandrew for Egley; and Pobar conducted his own case. "

The Crown case closed yesterday afternoon, and Pobar said he did not intend to call evidence in his defence.

Opening the case for Egley, Mr. Macandrew said Egley' first met Pobar early in 1935, when Pobar called at Union Finance Ltd., of which Egley was secretary, to apply for a loan. Egley had known Marshall some years previously as an insurance agent, and knew he was' secretary for National Motors in 1935. Pobar and a man named Blake called on him in June, 1935, and told'him they had made arrangements for a competition. They needed money for initial expenses, they said, and obtained a loan from Union Finance. , . MOTOR FIRM'S REFUSAL. Later in the same month, they saw Egley again and told him that the head office of General Motors had refused to agree to arrangements that had been made with the local office for the running of a car competition, and asked Egley if he would get into -touch with another company that would provide a car at cost price and co-operate in a -competition. ' Egley communicated with National Motors, continued: Mr. Macandrew. At that time he was not concerned in any way with the details of the competition; he was acting purely as a commission agent introducing one party to the other. He applied for the position of accountant or bookkeeper, and was appointed at £1 a week. He took no part in the launching of the competition until October, 1935, when Pobar told him that it was necessary to buy a new' car for demonstration purposes. Egley negotiated two loans totalling £75. Pobar said the second car was coming from-Auckland and that he would pick it up at Wanganui. SEATS ON CAR BROKEN. It was known: to Egley then that the seats of the prize car had been broken because National Motors had failed ■to provide a demonstration car. He was not satisfied with that, but he was assured ■by Pobar, and Marshall confirmed it. that a new car would be provided as the prize. At Pobar's invitation Egley went to Wanganui with him to sell tickets, and went oh to Auckland before returning to Wellington.. At New Plymouth the prize car was seized by Marshall for Guarantors, Ltd., a firm associated with National Motors which held a mortgage, on the-car. The Pobar and Blake partnership was dissolved, and Marshall and Pobar asked^Egley to continue selling tickets, as he had: been so successful.

Egley again, raised the question of the seats .of the prize car being broken, but National Motors, through Marshall, again assured him that a new car would be provided. Convinced by figures supplied by Pobar, that with average luck, the' venture would be a success, Egley sold tickets in the South Island while Pobar sold them in the North Island. In a period of five or six weeks Egley paid £100 into the overdraft .account, and had no reason to suspect that Pobar was not working equally successfully until November, when he received a telegram saying that all was not well. That was the first intimation he had, and he learned that Pobar had paid nothing into the overdraft account. On December 17- he returned to Wellington and refused to sell further tickets; and from that time on he took no par in the business except to act as gobetween between Marshall and Pobar: He did not know until November 26 that the bank account had been closed and that it was transferred to the name of Edward Jones.

Egley was in the box when the Court rose yesterday afternoon and he .was cross-examined today on various financial dealings.

Mr. O'Leary, in opening the case for Marshall, submitted that Marshall was as innocent of any wrong-doingi as his fellow-directors, who had almost equal knowledge of the venture but who in the happy position of being "called as witnesses for the Crown, while Marshall was being charged with a criminal offence. No matter how the competition might have gone astray, no matter how ill-founded the hopes of Marshall, unless the jury were satisfied that the' competition was started with the guilty intention of taking the public down, they could not return a verdict of guilty. Marshall started with the best of intentions, and the subsequent mess was something for which he was not responsible. (Proceeding.)