“MEAN SWINDLE”

Northern Advocate, 28 October 1932, Page 5

“MEAN SWINDLE”

DEPENDENTS’ MONEY. TAKEN.

BARNSLEY SENT TO GAOL,

(Per Press Association.—Copyripht.) CHRISTCHURCH, This Day.

Pleading not guilty to seven charges of forgery and seven of uttering, Herbert Edwin Barnsley, aged 52, an accountant and relief worker, late secretary and treasurer to the Labour Defence League, stood his trial yesterday before Mr Justice Ostler and a jury.

Barnsley was today sentenced on seven charges to three months’ gaol with hard labour.

It was alleged that Barnsley had accepted money from the Mayor’s Relief Fund for distribution to the dependents of men in prison as a result of the disturbances in May, and had forged the signatures of seven women without giving them their money, 3/ in each case, and that he returned the forged receipts to the City Council, tendering them as genuine.

The Crown Prosecutor said the Labour Defence League had been formed to help imprisoned men and their dependents. Barnsley was appointed secretary and treasurer. The league had a benevolent section, of which a man named White was secretary. It had been decided by the Mayor’s Relief Fund authority to grant the dependents of the imprisoned men 3/ a week each. The sum of 36/ was paid by the council’s cashier to White, who paid’lhree women. Then, as he had to go to a job, he gave the receipt forms and 27/ to Barnsley, who was to carry out the distribution. On July 27 the accused returned 12 receipts, which were accepted as genuine, and he was given another 30/ for distribution. The trouble then arose that the women complained they had not received money. When charged by the •women -with failing to give them the money, Barnsley maintained that ho had been busy and had handed on the money to another man who had brought him back the receipts. “He still maintains that,’’ said the Crown Prosecutor, "but he has refused to give the name of the man to whom he gave the money. It is the trumped-up excuse of a perpetrator of a mean and disreputable swindle." Barnsley was found guilty on all counts.