GRAVE IRREGULARITIES.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLVI, Issue 44, 21 January 1926, Page 3

GRAVE IRREGULARITIES.

ALDERMAN’S CONFESSION

LONDON, Jan. 11. Alderman Trotter, a former Lord Mayor of Bradford, and for 27 years chairman of ono of tho council committees, resigned last month nfter confessing to grave financial irregularities. Tho report of the committee which inquired into the matter unfolds an amazing story of financial jugglery. The committee contends that tno corporation’s employees, using the ratepayers' money for wages and materials, internally decorated both Trotter’s and his daughter’s residences. Trotter frequently borrowed sums of from £2O to £3O from the baths’ exchequer. When an auditor unexpectedly arrived the clerk rushed to Trotter’s house and secured the debit balance, which he returned to Trotter after the auditor’s departure. At least £G or £7 a week was wrongly paid to Trotter for refreshments, beer, spirits and taxi-cabs. A grocer delivered hundreds of bottles of whisky to tho baths department and charged for them as biscuits. The committee questioned / Trotter regarding a carpet delivered to his private house, and also regarding furniture repairs, unauthorised increases in wages to tho corporation’s staff, and excessivo use of taxis. Trotter admitted some of the alleged irregularities and denied others.