Two Years' Detention For Hikurangi Clerk

Northern Advocate, 23 August 1945, Page 6

Two Years ' Detention For Hikurangi Clerk

(Special.) AUCKLAND. This Day. ‘•The law always looks with severity on breaches of trust.” said Mr Justice Cornish to Alaistair Herbert Finlay Atkinson, 37, clerk, who appeared before him this morning in the Supreme Court on remand from Whangarei, for sentence on two charges of theft. The prisoner had been given a good education, but appeared to be addicted to gambling, said His Honor. At the time of the offences he was earning £lO weekly as a mines clerk at Hikurangi and had the confidence of the men in the mine. Thirty of them entered into an agreement for the prisoner .to collect money from them and hold it in trust to pay their income tax. It was an entirely praiseworthy arrangement on the part of the men, but Atkinson had broken faith. “I feel I would not be doing my duty to the community or to you, who need a sharp lesson, if I did not impose a sentence suitable to the offence,” the Judge said. “Probation is out of the question.” Atkinson was sentenced to two years' reformative detention on each charge, the sentences to be concurrent.