FALSIFYING BOOKS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21328, 1 November 1932, Page 14

FALSIFYING BOOKS

CIVIL SERVANT'S LAPSE EIGHTEEN MONTHS IN GAOL • [from our own correspondent] SUVA, Oct, 24 Pleading guilty to charges of falsifying departmental cash books, Hugh Neville Reay, a former clerk in the Treasury Department, has been sentenced to 18 months' imprisonment with hard labour at a special session of the Fiji 'Supreme Court. Sums of £919 16s 6d, £344 0s 7d nncJ £lO4 12s 8d were involved in tho three charges respectively. It was stated bv the Crown that the actual shortage in the Treasury at March 8, 1932, amounted to £644" 4s lid. Accused had pleaded guilty'in the Lower Court. Counsel for the accused stated that his client had been faced with domestic responsibilities of an unusual kind. At one time his client was paying a moneylender 360 per cent, for a loan, said counsel. The increase of debt was inevitable. Jn a moment of emergency he cashed his cheque that was in the safe, intending as usual to redeem it, but outside pressure sent him on a wrong course. lij sentencing accused the acting-Chief Justice said it was not a charge that could bo treated leniently in any country in the world. Accused hud been a public servant in a position of trust, and, in addition, the whole of his department had been under suspicion for about six months.