PUBLIC SERVANT'S LAPSE

Evening Star, Issue 25344, 28 November 1944, Page 4

PUBLIC SERVANT'S LAPSE

THEFT OF SMALL AMOUNTS

Tli© theft of five small sums of money amounting in all to £l9 Os 8d between' December, 1942, and February of this year were admitted in the Police Court before Mr J. R. Bartholomew, S.M., this morning by George Giuseppe Seelau, aged 39, a clerk, formerly employed by the Lands and Survey Department. Mr I. L. Turnbull appeared for the accused. Senior-detective. T. Y. Hall said Seelan had been in the service of the department'for.24J- years, and at the time the offences were committed lie was senior' accounts clerk at the Lands and Survey Office, Dunedin. His duties did not include -receiving money, but on occasions he did receive payments. In the fivo cases he had given official receipts, destroyed the duplicates and falsified the ledger sheets. He had admitted the thefts when interviewed by departmental officials and also to Detective Gibson. He had been suspended from his position in the service. In manipulating the ledger sheets he had only falsified five of 5,000 in the office.' Ho had' put the initials of other members of tho staff on the sheets and later changed them. He received a salary of £393 a year for a week. He had not been in trouble before. The books had been audited and disclosed no other defalcations. Mr Turnbull said that after the rent of a Government house, superannuation, and taxes had been deducted from his salary, Seelan had only £4 2s 3d a week left. He had been in the Army for a few months. For the last seven years his wife had been in ill-health and had been in hospital repeatedly. The accused had had to meet heavy expense for help in the home or for boarding out his children, and his financial worries had been responsible for his lapse. Counsel asked the court to consider probation. The Magistrate said that in view of the domestic circumstances of the accused he would admit him to probation for one year, a condition being that restitution be made.