WIFE'S NAME FORGED.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20599, 25 June 1930, Page 14

WIFE'S NAME FORGED.

DIVERSION OF ALLOWANCE.

MAN AND WOMAN SENTENCED. "EXCEPTIONAL CIRCUMSTANCES" Charged jointly with forgery, May June Sutherland, biscuit-maker, aged 21, arid Harold Henry James Mills, labourer, aged 38, appeared for senloneo before Mr. Justice Smith in the Supremo Court yesterday. They wero not represented by counsel. Both had pleaded guilty in the lower Court to a charge of forging a Public Works Department money-order for £8 8s 4d. Mills had obtained work at Rotorua through the Government Labour Bureau, and left an order for half his wages to bo sent to his wife, but actually ho'sent it to Sutherland. He prevailed on her to collect it by signing the naino of Mills' wife. Mr. Moredith, for the Crown, said the offence had not attached to it that degree of criminality that generally attached lo crimes of forgery. Mills had earned tlio money himself, and it was with a view to deflecting it from the proper person to whom it should have gone, his wife, that ho induced this young woman to forgo the wife's name. It was quito clear t'vat the girl must have been acting entirely under tho influence and entirely oii the advice of tho man.

His Honor told the prisoners that wliilo the oflenco was a venial 'one the Court regarded it as an offence, although the circumstances were exceptional. The male prisoner was endeavouring to provido for the female prisoner, with whom ho was cohabiting, but had no business to do so by inducing her to sign tho name of his wife. The Judge said ho would admit tho male prisoner to probation for one year and order him to pay £6 Is lOd, costs of the prosecution. The femalo prisoner would be ordered to come up lor benlenee if called upon within six months.