PENALTY FOR FORGERY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 19891, 9 March 1928, Page 12

PENALTY FOR FORGERY.

FOUR YEARS' IMPRISONMENT.

CHANCES NOT APPRECIATED.

[BY telegraph.—own correspondent.] HAMILTON, Thursday.

"You appear to have made the unprofitable business of forgery your object in life," said Mr. Justice Blair in the Hamilton Supreme Court to-day, when sentencing a young man, Ranford Joseph Coates, to four years' imprisonment with hard labour. Coates had been found guilty on two charges of forgery at Putaruru. In one case he had altered the value of a cheque drawn in his favour by his employer from £6 to £6O. Payment of the cheque was stopped. In the second case, Coates signed his employer's signature to a cheque for £lO and uttered it to a Putaruru storekeeper.

The Judge said prisoner Jiad a good education, ability, and a trade. He was also a good penman. Coates, said the Judge, had had previous convictions for breaking and entering and for forgery. He had not taken advantage of the chances he had been given, and tho punishment he had previously received, and the only thing to do was to send him to prison for a long term. Coates was declared an habitual criminal.