FRAUDS ON FARMERS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXX, Issue 21509, 5 June 1933, Page 11

FRAUDS ON FARMERS

MAN SENT TO GAOL JUDGE'S SCATHING COMMENT "SIMPLY A LOW THIEF" Caustic criticism of prisoner's conduct was expressed by Mr. Justice Blair in the Supreme Court in Christchurch last week, when he sentenced Frederick John Leonard on three charges of obtaining credit by fraud. Prisoner had offered farmers in the Blenheim district high prices for their produce and when he got it he sold it at ruling rates and did not pay the farmers.

Leonard, who was not represented by counsel, handed a written statement to the Court. After reading it His Honor said that it was no eood trying to get him to swallow as a fact that prisoner thought he had a good business in Blenheim. That simply showed that prisoner had a moral kink or was a first-class liar, and from His Honor's point of view it did not matter which. What Leonard did was to get farmers' produce in Blenheim, offering a high price to get it, and then he sold it at the current market rate.

The polite description of prisoner's crime, said the Jjidce, was obtaininc money by fraud, but as a matter of fact he was simply a low thief. The Blenheim probation officer regarded Leonard as a very low person indeed. His Honor had no sympathy with prisoner at all. He was very sorry for the unfortunate farmers, some of whom prisoner probably had ruined. He wou|d be sentenced to 12 months' imprisonment with hard labour, to be followed by reformative detention for a period not exceeding one year.