GAOL SENTENCE

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 77, 28 September 1938, Page 15

GAOL SENTENCE

FALSE PRETENCES

One charge of false pretences, one of attempted false pretences, and a charge of a breach of probation were admitted by William John Cousins, a steward or ship's cook, aged 34, who appeared before Mr. J. L. Stout, S.M., in the Magistrate's Court today.

Detective-Sergeant P. Doyle, who prosecuted, said that on September 17 the accused visited a shop in Cuba Street and presented a cheque for £4, bearing the rubber stamp of a city firm. He received £4 in money. Two days later he visited the shop again, and with another cheque received clothing and money to the value of £7 0s 6d. The following day he visited another shop and purchased a sports coat, presenting another cheque. When questioned by Detectives Callaghan and Hedley he admitted that the cheque was false. The cheques were three out of five which had been stolen from a cheque book issued to the company referred to. The accused said he had found them. When he had been before the Court in June last in connection with a similar type of offence he had stated that he found the cheque in a dust-bin.

From the dock the accused said that he was under the influence of drink when he committed the offences.

Cousins was convicted and sentenced to six months' imprisonment with hard labour on each of the first two charges, the sentences to be cumulative, and on the charge of breach of probation he was convicted and sentenced to three months' imprisonment, to be concurrent with the other sentences.