MONEY MISSING

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVI, Issue 23358, 29 May 1939, Page 6

MONEY MISSING

POLICEMAN CHARGED PENSIONER'S HUT VISITEq SUM OF £4O DISAPPEARS -S3J .. [l'ltOM OUR OWN* CORRKSPOXDEXT] S"i DNEY, May jy The disappearance or £-10 from a hut, in which the body of a pensioner, J ameß Ordish, was found, resulted in two policemen being committed for trial on a charge of theft, at the. Wentworth Courthouse in South-west New South Wales. The charge of having stolen £4O, the property of the New South Wale s Public Trustee, was against Sergeant Cecil Hoy Kirk and Constable - John Theodore Rowland. The hut in which Ordish lived was in the Wentworth police paddock. George Boxhall, a pensioner, said in evidence that he found Ordish dead ' and Rowland and Kirk were the nest persons to visit the hut. Robert Jackson, of Wentworth, said that when he went to the hut he saw Sergeant Kirk pick up a parcel and saw banknotes. Later the police accused him of having taken the money. Constable Rowland threatened to "bash" him and tried to make him admit having taken it. John A. McGeorge, undertaker, said he had seen. Kirk with a roll of notes worth £4O, but that night Kirk told him the money was missing. Both Kirk and Rowland then asked him to bury Ordish as a pauper. Both also accused Jackson of having taken the money, but he would have stuck to Jackson through thick and thin, because he knew him to be innocent.. F. li. Horsington, clerk of petty sessions at Wentworth, said both defendants had come to him and asked how much he wanted for the burial. They had £4O belonging to Ordish. Next day, Kirk told him that somebody had "pinched" the money.