SENTENCE AT AUCKLAND.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LII, Issue 67, 18 February 1932, Page 3

SENTENCE AT AUCKLAND.

’*£>’Per Press Association. ‘ ’ v AUCKLAND, Feb. 17. The seriousness of the crime of circulating forged banknotes was emphasised by Sir Alexander Herdman when sentencing . Harry Dawson in the Supreme" Court to-day. / Dawson had pleaded guilty to charges of uttering six Bank of New South Wales £1 notes and of having 475 of them in his possession. . .;A ; V‘ - \ Counsel said that Dawson was a married man with four young children. He lost his position when.. the 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 banknotes. He thought if he brought this under the notice of the police he might get into trouble, so he took the .notes home. He became. completely out pf work, 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 forgers. How he became possessed of■the notes was not known. ' ./.•'■His Honour said he had looked through the t depositions and agreed with counsel for the Crown that there appeared to be nothing in them that showed Dawson was actually a party to the manufacture of the notes, ifeyertheless, he knew 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 banknotes among the public is a matter that I regard as a very grave ofience indeed, and I am bound to mete out punishment-that will warn those who contemplate practices of this, kind that the consequences are serious,” said His Honour. , •_ Dawson was sentenced to be detained for reformative purposes for a period not exceeding three years. ,