RECEIVING CHARGE

Evening Post, Volume CXXXI, Issue 118, 21 May 1941, Page 8

RECEIVING CHARGE

STOLEN CHEQUE FORMS

Found guilty by a jury of receiving three Bank of New Zealand cheque forms, knowing them to have been stolen, James Verdi Gestro, a cheese factory hand, aged 23, has been sentenced to ten months' imprisonment by the Chief Justice (Sir Michael Myers). The term will run concurrently with another sentence now being served.

Gestro and a man named William Walter Hassett had been charged in the Magistrate's Court with breaking into the home of Alfred James Baker, 100 Bolton Street, and committing theft. ' Hassett pleaded guilty, but Gestro pleaded not guilty and was committed to the Supreme Court for trial. In the Supreme Court he faced that charge, a charge of stealing a cheque book (one of the articles missing from the house), aand a third count of receiving three cheque forms. He had been dealt with in the Magistrate's Court for offences in connection with his use of the cheque forms

Mr. A. B. Sievwright, who appeared for Gestro, said Hassett would say that he gave the forms to Gestro, who could not possibly have known how they had been obtained. They were valued at' only sixpence.

In his summing-up his Honour recommended that the jury confine their attention to the'third count, and when imposing sentence after the jury returned, he said the term would pro. bably have been longer had not the prisoner been sentenced already in the Magistrate's Court.

Mr. C. H. Weston, K.C., with " him Mr. W. R. Birks, appeared for the Crown.