SON AGAINST FATHER

Evening Star, Issue 17765, 13 September 1921, Page 3

SON AGAINST FATHER

CHARGE OF FRAUD DISMISSED, DEFENDANT COMPLETELY VINDICATED. “ WITHOUT A STAIN OH HIS CHARACTER.”;

The private prosecution in which Hec or , Freeman James charged his %rQ r ’ii 71 1 James, with having received £329 Us on terms requiring him to account for this j amount to Messrs John James and Lo., Ltd., and with having failed to do so, was concluded in the City Police Court yesterday afternoon, aftgr nearly two days’ sitting. Mr J. R. Bartholomew, , S.M., in dismissing the case, stated that John James had been completely Mndi-) cated, and left the “ without a stain on his character.” Mr F. Brasch appeared for tho intormant, and'Mr A. C. Hanlon for the detendant. . The informant v.-jis cross-cxaminecl at length yesterday afternoon by Mr Hanlon. Many extracts from letters were piloted, and Mr Hanlon showed that the evidence of the informant did not tally with the affidavit ho made in Wellington when obtaining tho warrant for his father’s arrest. To other questions witness said he had paid £B3 6s on his shares in tho company. £SO towards payment ot the shares and’ £33 interest. That was in December. Ho found n book in his father’s bedroom, and mentioned cortain entries to his brother Melville. Informant did not consult any solicitor other than Messrs Sievwriglit, James, ami Niched until after Mav 6, when a general discussion took place. Witness acknowledged having consulted various legal firms. In one case ho was told that tho company was prepared to allow him to appoint bis own accountant and have the books made up; but lie (informant) did not consider that it was his place to get tho books made up.—Mr Hanlon produced , an extraordinary loiter, in the in- ; formant referred to bis father in most 1 abusive terms, and demanded a settlement at £5,500. The informant said that this • demand was made in order to compel the j company to make up the books. | To Mr Brasch informant said the figure £5.500 was hn absurd one, and was merely “ bluff.” j Further questions by Mr Hanlon mated to the informant travelling to Wellington on the ferry steamer the same night as his father, and obtaining a warrant there for his arrest. The informant refused to acknowledge that he knew his father was only going to Sydney to be married. | THE DEFENCE. _ | Mr Hanlon submitted that the informant had completely tailed to make out a • prima "facie case, and that the defendant should not be called upon to answer the charge. Ills Worship must have come to the same conclusion, otherwise lie (counsel) might have made some comment on the evidence; but he thought that unnecessary in the circumstances. He simply wished to say that it was a terrible blow to the father that ho should have been arrested on such a charge just as he was on his way to Sydney, where he was to have been married. Could anyone imn- ■ enne such a blow for a father to be ar- ; rested at tho instigation of his son on_ a charge of this sort, and under such circumstances, an 1 more especially when the | son knew perfectly well that his father; was well-to-do, and that a matter of a few hundred pounds was neither here nor there to him? It was absurd to suggest that the defendant would steal a paltry few hundred pounds from his own sons to whom ho intended to give tho business. Nothing could be more preposterous. Counsel then explained that the original intention of the defendant was to make the busines over to the two sons, but his solicitors advised him that the- safest and best way was to convert it into a company. so that he would have soma control in case either of the boys got over the traces. These boys up to the time of the alleged theft had never paid a shilling into the company. So _ far as tho father was concerned, his desire all along was that tho business should bo handed over to his boys entirely. In respect to the informant, every effort was made to pacify him by having voluntary liquidation, or by sending auditors in to peruse the books. He had been offered everything that was possible. Now they had a sort of suggestion that tho father was disloyal, that he did not want his sons _to go to tho war. That was a wicked thing to say. Mr James had been a volunteer hero ‘for about forty years, and was a particularly strong loyalist, ■as many people in Dunedin well knew. He had been a very prominent volunteer, and was also hignly respected as a citizen. To say that he wanted his son’s war pension was another vile suggestion to make. It was preposterous in the extreme. Ho (counsel) suggested that all this was the coinage of tho brain of informant s “ worthy ” brother, an embryo solirilor, who, ho suggested, was the cause of all tho trouble,’and who to some extent had led the young fellow astray. Tho whole matter was one which, if necessary, could have been fought out in the civil court. Ho had never heard of such a wicked criminal charge.

THE MAGISTRATE’S COMMENTS. “WRETCHED PIECE OF BUSINESS," His Worship said he could not see the slightest suggestion tor the allegation that the defendant intended to defraud the company, and, through the company, theinformant, his son. The whole thing was a, most wretched piece of business, and was a case that should never have come before the court. He should say, however, in connection with that, that tho solicitor who now appeared for the informant was not consulted before the proceedings were commenced, but took them up after thev were launched by the son himself.’ The informant evidently had no lack of legal advice in Dunedin, in the first instance. Then he went to Wellington, where an affidavit was signed, an information laid, and proceedings _ taken. There was absolutely no foundation for him laying a criminal charge. The books were all investigated. The evidence of Mr Mitchell in regard to that summed up the whole position. Tho defendant did not even keep the books. There had been nothing at all secretive or underhand on his part at all. Tho formation of the company was, in fact, a simple proposition, based by the father for the advantage of the sons themselves. The infm’mant had been so extravagant in someof his statements that it was just a question of whether there was not something abnormal about his mentality. The letterwritten by him to his father was most scandalous in its terms. It was a most wicked letter, and would call for most severe condemnation if there was not a doubt as to there being something deficient about the witness’s mentality. The charge would be dismissed, and ho only regretted that so much of the court’s time had been taken up in hearing it. “The defendant has completely vindicated himself, and leaves the court without a stain on his character.”