FRAUDS ADMITTED

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22777, 10 July 1937, Page 21

FRAUDS ADMITTED

CYCLE-DEALER'S OFFENCES COMMENT BY MAGISTRATE Two charges of false pretences involving £l6 9s Gd, obtained from the Private Trust, Limited, were admitted in the Police Court yesterday, before Mr. C. R. Orr Walker, S.M. by Earle Cuthbert Gillespie, cycle dealer, aged 49 (Mr. Biernacki). Detective-Sergeant McHugh said that accused got a drunken man, who went into his bicycle shop on February IL. to sign a hire-purchase agreement, which ho took to a firm of moneylenders to be discounted lor £8 13s Jd. Some weeks later accused got anothei person to sign a hire-purchase agreement, which accused used for a similar purpose as the first. Only small instalments had been repaid. "The whole thing ,was a fraud, said Mr. McHugh. "We know very little about accused, who served in tho war, later farmed in llhodesia, and came to New Zealand five years ago. He came to Auckland from Christchurch three years a^o." Counsel said that accused was financially driven into a corner at the time the offences occurred, and lie committed the frauds with no ill-intent as he intended to make restitution. It was a foolish thing to have done, as accused discounted hundreds of hirepurchase agreements. , The magistrate said that accused must have realised ho would be detected sooner or later. It was rathei a serious fact that ho got a drunk man to sign a paper. Accused was admitted to probation for two years and ordered to make restitution.