COUNTERFEIT NOTES

Grey River Argus, 18 February 1932, Page 5

COUNTERFEIT NOTES

CIRCULATOR SENTENCED. TO THREE YEARS. (Per Press Association). AUCKLAND, February 17. The seriousness of the crime of circulating forged bank notes was emphasised by Mr Justice Herdman, when sentencing Harry Dawson in the Supreme Court. Dawson had pleaded guilty to charges of uttering six Bank of N.S.W. £1 notes, and of having 475 of them in his possession. Counsel said Dawson was a married man, with four young children. He lost his position when a company that was employing him went into liquidation. He was doing relief work, and during this time, he found a tin containing a number of bank notes. He thought that, if he brought this under notice of police, he might get into trouble, so he took the notes home. He became completely out of work,, and he succumbed to temptation, and ,

circulated about ten of the notes. The Crown Prosecutor said that the, passing of spurious notes was a serious matter, but there was nothing to indicate that Dawson was in any’ way a party to the original forging of them. He might have known of it, but there was nothing to link him up with the forgery. How he became possessed of the notes was not known. His Honour said that he had looked through the depositions, and he agreed with counsel for the Crown that there appeared to be nothing in them that showed that Dawson was actually a party to the manufacture of the notes. Nevertheless, he knew that they were forged, and on several occasions he circulated them. A serious feature was that he was found in possession of a large number. “The distribution of these bank notes among the public is a matter that I regard as a very grave offence indeed, and I am bound to mete out punishment that will warn those who contemplate a practice of this kind that the consequences are serious, ’ ’ said His Honour. Dawson was sentenced to bo detain ed for reformative purposes for a per iod not exceeding three years.