EMBEZZLEMENT BY PREACHER

Greymouth Evening Star, 4 September 1934, Page 2

EMBEZZLEMENT BY PREACHER

JUDGE’S DENUNCIATION. John Thomas Wilby, 60, a lay preacher, and registrar and chaplain of Leeds General Cemetery, was found guilty at Leeds Assizes reeentlv, on ten counts, charging him with' embezzlement and falsification .of accounts. ft was alleged that he had embezzled money paid to him lor graves. , . Mr A. P. Peaker, who prosecuted, said Wilby practically ran the whole of the business of the cemetery and often took burial services it bereaved people did not bring their own Justice Macnaghten said it was to be made clear that Wilby was not a Clerk in Holy Orders and Mi C' }J G Streatfield, who defended, explained that he was a lay preacher. Mr Peaker said that on various oe

casions Wilby had charged sums for graves ranging from £2 io £3/10/more than he had accounted for. When arrested, Wilby said. “This is my Gethsemane.” Wilby. in the witness-box, said he had been a lay preacher for forty years, and after- thirty-five years' service to Woodhouse-lane Methodist Church, Leeds, received a diploma. For some years he had suffered from the effects of rheumatic fever and injuries he received in a motor smash. He had suffered from loss of memory and this was the cause of the defalcations. He never took any money intentionally. Passing sentence of twelve months in the second division, Mr Justice Macnaghten said: ‘‘lt has been given in evidence that hitherto you were reputed- to be an honest and upright man, and that you have been professing to be a man of religion and of high moral standards, whereas in truth you have been proved to be a dishonest rogue and a hypocrite.”