MEN COMMITTED FOR TRIAL ON TOTE FORGERY CHARGES

Grey River Argus, 24 April 1948, Page 5

MEN COMMITTED FOR TRIAL ON TOTE FORGERY CHARGES

P.A. AUCKLAND, April 23. The last of the evidence against the three men charged with the forgery of totalisator tickets, uttering them, theft, and conspiring to defraud the Auckland Racing Club was taken before Mr J. H. Luxford, S.M, this morning. The accused were Neville Wolfe, aged 30, clerk; John Proctor Savage, aged 27, labourer; and Douglas < Gordon, aged 45, machine operator. An account of how lie and three other detectives shadowed the accused at Ellerslie on Saturday, March 27, the first day of the Auckland ' Racing Club’s autumn meeting, was given by Detective Sergeant Ross, the last of 15 witnesses called by the prosceution. He produced a staten»ent made by the accused, Gor-' don, after his arrest, that day: “I thought, all along, that Wolfe and. Savage were friends,” stated Gordon, “and I deny knowing that they . were both involved in the forgery and uttering of totalisatoi* tickets. Wolfe has never given me any tic- . kets to Gash for him. Altogether, I have cashed about four for Savage. It never enteied my head, at any tinie, that there may have - been something wrong with the tickets I had cashed for savage. I have never asked him why he did not cash his own tickets.” The accused said he had never seen Savage or Wolfe in ; the possession of any stamps suitable : for stamping totalisator tickets. He had not seen either of them making . any erasure on a ticket. The acday with Wolfe and Savage, in the cused added he went to the races that former’s car. They had picked him up casually. He had been, shown totalisator ’ tickets, alleged to have been forged, by the police, but he did not know anything about them. At the end of the police case coun- . sei intirpated they were not then calling evidence. The- three accused pleaded ■ not guilty to all counts, and wei;e committed to the Supreme Court for trial. Each was released on bail of £250, with a surety of the same amount, and were instructed to report nightly at the detective office. The magistrate declined to make an order that they were not to associate.