USELESS CHEQUES

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVI, Issue 23339, 6 May 1939, Page 17

USELESS CHEQUES

LAND AGENT'S OFFENCE TERM OF PROBATION CONDITIONS ATTACHED Probation for three years on certain special conditions was the penalty imposed by Mr. Justice Fair in the Supreme Court yesterday on Michae! O'Sullivan. land agent, aged 40, who had been found guilty on six charges of issuing valueless cheques for a total of £37. The jury had added a recommendation to mercy on account of the action of the bank concerned in honouring the cheques, and thereby breaking the agreement between the parties. Mr. Fraer, on behalf of the prisoner, said the probation officer's report was quite favourable. O'Sullivan had never been in any trouble before. It was a foolish action that was the result of a drinking bout. The bank accepting the cheques with one signature lulled him into a sense of false security. His Honor said it seemed clear that the offences were due to a combination of drinking and gambling. The jury had made a recommendation to mercy, and that recommendation he would scive full effect to. The prisoner had lived an honest life up to the present, and these offences were due partly, or perhaps largely, to drink, partly to the temptation offered to him by the previous cheque, which he knew was not in order, having, by an oversight, been cashed by the bank. His Honor said prisoner would be released on probation for three on condition that lie took out a prohibition order -against himselr, that he repaid within three months moneys of which persons had been defrauded, that he paid the costs of the prosecution within six months, and that lie accepted the direction of the probation officer as to the employment he might accept.