POCKETS HIS BANK’S GOLD.

Manawatu Times, Volume 61, Issue 290, 8 December 1936, Page 9

POCKETS HIS BANK’S GOLD.

LEFT SOVEREIGNS IN A STATION. CLOAKROOM. MYSTERY OF WHY lIE WAS SUSPECTED. How station officials came to suspect a bank clerk who, it transpired, had deposited stolen gold in the cloakroom, was kept a secret when the'story of the incident was told at the Guildhall.

Inspector Gankerseer, of the City Police, when questioned On the point by Alderman Sir Harry Twyford, replied that that was information which he did not wish to disclose. Sentence of three months in the second division was passed on Peter George Pringle', 29, of Bradstock Road, Stonelcigh, Surrey, a clerk at the Lothbury brancli of the Westminster Bank, who pleaded guilty to stealing £-112 in sovereigns from the vaults of the bank.

Pringle, it was staled, had been employed by the Bank since 1925 and tiis salary was £314 a year. On July 11 he, with others, was dealing with bags of gold in the vaults when he slipped one into his pocket. Later he bought an attache-case, put the' gold in it, and left it at Waterloo Station cloakroom. A month later he called at the cloak-room, removed 80 of the sovereigns and redeposite'd the case. Subsequently the officials at Waterloo became suspicious, and when Pringle went to claim the case he was arrested. The' case was found to contain the balance of £332 in sovereigns. Mr Prideaux, prosecuting, remarked the bank was not vindictive, but the case was one it could not overlook. He understood that £47 was being paid back to the bank. .'Mr Geoffrey Gush, defending, mentioned that Pringle was married, with one child. Ills father, a pensioner from the same bank, was critically ill.

“There' is no excuse I- can offer for this extraordinary lapse,” added Mr Gush. “He apparently got a bit hard up, and suddenly, handling the gold, It must have become an obsession with him to take it.

“Some of the money was spent, but £47. had been repaid, and I understand that a further £BO will also be paid.

“If the stigma of conviction, and ''mprisonment can be avoided, he may possibly, with the help of friends, get another position.” Alderman Twyford remarked he had fistene'd to what Mr Gush said, but, vhile he would be willing to adopt i lenient course, it would not be consistent with his duty.