LAND SALES BREACH CHARGE DENIED: WELLINGTON DEAL

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXVI, Issue 23023, 13 August 1949, Page 4

LAND SALES BREACH CHARGE DENIED: WELLINGTON DEAL

(P.A.) WELLINGTON. Aug. 12. A retired cabinetmaker, James Hodgson Finlay, Dunedin, pleaded not guilty before Mr. T. E. Maunsell, S.M., in the Magistrate’s Court to a charge of a breach of the land sales regulations in that he failed to disclose the receipt of £250 in addition to the approved price in respect of property at Seatoun, Wellington. Counsel for the defendant said the defendant had veen the victim of a trick by people who had given the information to the police. These people, he said, had paid the money over and had thought they would get it back as a result of later developments. The police evidence stated that the defendant was an agent for a property in Seatoun owned by his wife. Last year the defendant and his wife were to shift to Dunedin and it was agreed to make an exchange of a property purchase with a Mrs. Ruttledge, St. Kilda, Dunedin. The Land Sales Court reduced the price of the Seatoun property from £2500 to £1950.

An arrangement was made whereby £350 was to be paid over to the defendant over and above the Land Sales Court price. Mrs. Ruttledge’s son-in-law, Graham Gifford Tait, Wellington, met the defendant at the Wellington Post Office where he handed him a cheque for £250, not £350, continued the police evidence. Finlay then opened an account in the name of “Repentance Fund —Undenominational” with himself as sole trustee and the cheque given by Tait was subsequently lodged in this account.

The defendant had said that this fund was to be used for “the Lord’s work.” Senior-Detective Callaghan is prosecuting for the police and DetectiveSergeant Berry, Dunedin, is attending the case as a witness. (Proceeding).