THEFT OF £462

Grey River Argus, 21 September 1945, Page 2

THEFT OF £462

ADMITTED BY SOCIAL SECURITY CLERK P.A. AUCKLAND, Sept. 29 At the .Magistrate’s Court, James Dermot Walsh, 55, authorising clerk in the Auckland branch of the Social Security Department pleaded guilty to a charge that, being a clerk in the employ of the Social Security Department, he stole sums of money totalling £462, the property of the New Zealand Government. Mr. F. H. Levien, S.M. committed Walsh to the Supreme Court for sentence on August 30. When interviewed by Detective C. A. Lane he made a statement as follows: Late in 1942, I conceived the idea- of beating the Department for money. This was made easier by mv official capacity as authorising officer. My idea was to fill in all necessary forms myself and make up bogus names and addresses of beneficaries, together with bogus levy coupon book numbers. To obviate the necessity for a medical certificate I indicated on the application form that the applicant was an inpatient of the Auckland Hospital. This would also obviate renewal of a medical certificate. The S.S. 53 cards would be prepared and left i-n the box for sickness benefits to be assessed each week and the appropriate postal warrants prepared by the typist, and checked by the checking officer. The false warrants would be sent with good ones to be countersigned. The officer countersigning would not have any idea there were any irregular warrants in the bundle. ‘ To prevent the matter going before cyclic review, which is undertaken at the expiration of six months, I would remove the cards from the current box, thus indicating that the benefit had lapsed. When T. lapsed once I conceived another benefit. The relevant files in each case would be destroyed, along with the S.S. 53 card. The postal warrants were collected at post offices. Walsh said he always filled in the name of the payee on the respective postal warrants and cashed them all himself. He obtained possession of the postal warants after they had been enveloped, in some cases by removing them from containers in the office. In other cases he allowed the warrants to be posted out to the 'addresses and later obtained possession of them. He added: “I had two persons deliver these warrants to me, but I do not wish to disclose their names. They are not connected with the Social Security Department. The 41 postal warrants shown me by the police are some of those which I issued. My handwriting appears thereon as having received the money mentioned in each warrant. When the warrant which had been posted out was delivered to me 1 would give half the money to the person delivering it. The remainder of the money I have spent. 1 frittered it away.”