ABETTOR OF FRAUD

Evening Star, Issue 25173, 12 May 1944, Page 6

ABETTOR OF FRAUD

.» CIVIL SERVANT FOUND GUILTY (P.A.) OHRISTCHURCH, May 11. When Angus Cameron Macfarlane, ased 44. formerly a Civil servant in the Ministry of Supply, was found guilty in the Supreme Court 1 io-day of theft involving the sum of £327 16s sd.' Mr Justice Northcroft, when dismissing the jury, commented: "I think it is a perfectly proper verdict, gentlemen, and one with which I entirely agree." Macfarlane was nomanded for sentence. The jury retired at 3.10 p.m. and returned at 5.30.

In his summing up, Mr Justice Northcroft described the case as an important one. not only to the accused, whose future was at stake, but for the community as a whole, as the. public had learned that certain departmental officers had been taking advantage of their authority to perpetrate a fraud. Though the initial thief had been the witness C. S. Sapsford, the law undoubtedly regarded an accomplice as equally guilty. The Crown had submitted that both men were equally guilty, that Mcfarlane had shared everything with Sapsford, and was, in fact, an accomplice of the principal thief. Sapsford bad come before the court, His Honour said, a convicted criminal, a man whose word could not be accepted unless there was corroboration, and it was the duty of the court to warn the jurors that such evidence must always be treated with caution unless there was corroboration. There was, however, a great deal of evidence which suggested that Macfarlane -had been implicated in the frauds, and His Honour indicated portions of the evidence by other witnesses, which to his mind corroborated the evidence given by Sapsford.