LAPSE BY CLERK

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 22145, 26 June 1935, Page 14

LAPSE BY CLERK

MONEY NOT ACCOUNTED FOR [BT TELEGRAPH —PRESS ASSOCIATION"] CHEISTCHURCH, Tuesday A story of how a man left his home in Auckland to go on a week-end fishing trip and finally found himself in Timaru was told before Mr. E. C. Levvey, S.M., in the Christchurch Police Court to-day, when John Daintry Campbell Birch, aged 37, clerk, was charged with obtaining sums totalling £l6 and with failing to pay them to Muriel Wallace, thereby committing theft. He pleaded guilty. The police said complainant was a milk vendor, who had employed accused to collect accounts. One day last March accused went off on complainant's bicycle and failed to return. Counsel said accused was married. His position in Auckland was a good one. He had left his home there in March to go fishing, and eventually reached Christchurch. Ho had then no recollection of his past history. Later his wife reported him as missing. It was not until he was in Timaru that ho came to himself. Counsel suggested that the whole of the circumstances were due to his lapse of memory. Accused was convicted and ordered to come up for sentence when called upon and to make restitution within 14 days. The magistrate, in passing sentence, said the Courts had to do all they could to help in such cases.