VIOLATION OF TRUST.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 18897, 20 December 1924, Page 13

VIOLATION OF TRUST.

BANK CLERKS FORGERY. 1 JUDGE REFUSES PROBATION. REFORMATIVE DETENTION. i The young and newly-married bank clerk, Harold Keith Jones (Mr. Dickson), who pleaded guilty in the Police Court on Thursday to a charge of forging and uttering a cheque for £450, while in tho employ of the Bank of New Zealand, was sentenced by Mr. Justice Stringer in the Supreme Court yesterday to reformative detention for a period not exceeding two years. A strong appeal for probation was made by counsoL, who urged that prisoner's offence was a spontaneous act. His Honor said he could not agree with that view. He did not understand that there was any spontaneity about it, but a deliberate and carefully-arranged plan. Counsel explained that accused was going to get married. All arrangements had been made, but prisoner found he had not the necessary money to carry them out, and he desired to postpone the wedding. Ho had, however, gone so far that, iu respect to the girl's family, he had to go through with the matter*. Statement By Prisoner. His Honor: It is a curious way of showing respect, to steal money from an employer, with the inevitable result that it brings disgrace on the young woman and her family. In his statement, prisoner had said: "I discovered I was not in a position financially to celebrate the wedding in such a manner as I wished to do, and I devised a scheme to forge the name of a client of the bank to enable me to carry out my wedding in the manner in which I thought it should be carried out." Could anyone imagine, asked His Honor, a more idiotic, idea from a man possessed, as prisoner must be, of a reasonable amount of education and intelligence '! Counsel urged that the offence was not premeditated, and was not an instance of a man who had been* dabbling with money at the bank. In asking for probation, ho contended that the prisoner was not a criminal in the true sense of the word. The Court had the jurisdiction to grant probation to anyone, brought before it. If no man who committed an offence when in a public position, or in the Government service, could obtain probation, then the Act was, from their point of view, so much waste paper. The Judge's View of Case., His Honor said it was always extremely painful for him to have to deal with a young man, practically just commencing life, and of decent education and unbringing. If he had to deal with individual cases alone, he might feel justified in remitting prisoner to probation. But punishments were not devised entirely for the reformation of tho accused ; they had also to serve the purpose of being exemplary, and he had a duty to perform in the interests of the community. Here was a young man, single, under no obligation to his parents, and with nobody dependent on him. He was not pressed by necessity at all, but. having engaged himself to get married, he had devised this scheme of getting money to carry out his intention, in what he thought would bo a becoming manner. He was in a position of trust, and be had violated that trust. Judges had set their faces against granting probation to cases of deliberate breach of trust, except in very special circumstances, and he could find no such circumstances in prisoner's case. It would be impossible to grant probation. In sentencing him to reformative detention His Honor said ho would recommend that prisoner be placed in one of the penal institutions that would, as far as possible, result in him not being associated with the criminal class.

An order was made for the return of money recovered when prisoner was arrested.