PROBATION FOR FALSE CLAIM FOR PENSION

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXVI, Issue 23041, 3 September 1949, Page 4

PROBATION FOR FALSE CLAIM FOR PENSION

(P.A.) WELLINGTON Sept. 3. Two charges of making false statements in applying for the invalid’s benefit so as to obtain payment from the Social Security Department were preferred against Thomas Bartlett, 59, of Plimmerton, before Mr. J. Hessell, S.M., in the Magistrate’s Court yesterday.

Senior-Detective G. E. Callaghan said the accused, who pleaded guilty, had been granted an invalid’s pension of £ll7 a year on September 1, 1943. This continued till the end of 1947.

At the time the pension was granted the accused was in very poor health, but from February 5, 1947, to December 15, 1947, he had been employed as a cleaner under another name.

During this period, he earned £204. ' While working he had renewed his application for the invalid’s pension, stating that his earnings were nil. The accused had offered to make restitution of £B9/18/4, the amount he had wrongfully been paid. The accused said he had made the application because he was frightened that he might have a relapse of his illness.

Bartlett had made a false application very deliberately because he had done it under a false name, said Mr. Hessell. He proposed to take the course recommended by the probation officer by convicting the accused and admitting him to probation for two years and ordering restitution to the Social Security Department of £B9/18/4 by instalments of not less than £2 a week.