FALSE BALANCE SHEETS

Evening Star, Issue 25034, 29 November 1943, Page 2

FALSE BALANCE SHEETS

COMPANY DIRECTOR SENTENCED - NINE MONTHS 1 REFORMATIVE DETENTION Stanley Reginald Burns, company director, aged 48, who had been found guilty on Friday last on two charges of publishing and circulating false balance sheets, was before Mr Justice Kennedy this morning for sentence, Mr A. V. Murdoch, who represented the prisoner, said that, up to the time of the public proceedings in connection with Avon Motors Ltd. in Christchurch, Burns had never been charged with any criminal offence. He had a brilliant career in the last war, taking part in most of the great battles, including that of the Somme, and being awarded the Military Medal for gallantry. He had been seriously wounded, and on his return to New Zealand bad been in hosEital for two years. On his discharge e was apprenticed as a tailor's cutter, but inside work affected his health, and in 1930 he took employment as a'motor car salesman and, later, as a bond salesman, subsequently entering the field of company promotion, without any experience or ability for work of that nature. He promoted S. R. Burns and Co. in 1934, and here the shareholders' money_ appeared to have gone into the subsidiary companies which had lost money year after year through bad management and other causes. The investigation into the,, prisoner's affairs, said counsel, had not disclosed any actual defalcations by him in respect of the shareholders' money. His main fault seemed to be that he was a super, optimist. Mr Justice Northcroft indeed, described Burns, on the occasion of the latter's public examination in Christchurch, as being " either a supei optimist or a fool " ; and, said counsel, there seemed to be a good deal of truth in both cases. Mr Murdoch went on to state that, when Burns and Co. had gone into liquidation, the prisoner went back to his trade as tailor's cutter, and remained in it until recently, when he took a job as land salesman. He had been trying to rehabilitate himself. Burns had gained nothing personally from his positions in the companies be had promoted. '

His Honour: The probation officer'* report refers to the prisoner as having attended bookkeeping and accountancy classes.

Mr Murdoch: He had a superficial knowledge of these things, but the examination he passed was not a very strict one.

Tn passing a sentence of nine months' detention for reformative purposes on each of the two charges, the sentences to be concurrent, His Honour said that in 1938 and 1939, the periods concerning the charges upon which he had been found guilty, the prisoner had through his directorship and control of the company known as S. R. Burns and Co. Ltd., promoted and controlled a number of subsidiary companies, and had. by his entries at material times represented those companies as 'being of substance and value, whereas there was nothing of substantial value in them. What the prisoner had done was to 1 present balance sheets which created false impressions of the position of those companies, and very greatly deceived any shareholders and creditors who might read; them. This had resulted in a great loss to every person who might be enticed to take them at their face value. " You have already been prohibited from acting as chairman of any company for a period of five years from October, 1940," said His Honour, and the sentence of the court is that you be detained for reformative purposes for a term of nine months on each charge, the sentences to be concurrent." ' :| '