FOOL OR ROGUE?

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23618, 30 March 1940, Page 2 (Supplement)

FOOL OR ROGUE?

Remarkable Court of a Promine AN application for discharge from bankruptcy by Sir John Corbin Chubb, Bart., of St. Mary Abbot's Court, was refused by Mr. Registrar Kean, at London Bankruptcy Court, states the Morning Advertiser. Sir John, who was put forward an the "tool of an unscrupulous swindler," was given leave to reapply to the court in three years' time.

MR. C. T. NEWMAN, Assistant Official "Receiver, said that Sir John failed last July, and creditors' proofs of debt had been lodged amounting to £4142. No assets were disclosed, and in December the court refused an application by Sir John to pay a composition to his creditors. Sir John. Mr. Newman said, left a well-known public school in 192-'. and for about 12 years bad no settled occupation, but lived on an allowance of £SOO a year he received from his mother. Allowance from Mother In ItWl his mother executed a settlement under which he was entitled to tho income from investments, which had since approximated to £SOO a. year. Iri addition, for some years, his motheT made him an allowance of £ISOO a year. In September, 19:54, on the death of his father, the tirst baronet. he succeeded to the title, but derived no other benefit. In October. 19:54, he married. In November. 19:57, Sir John was convicted at the Central Criminal Court on a charge of conspiring with another person to commit a fraud, and he was sentenced to six months' imprisonment. Mr. Newman added that, after his release, Sir John became associated with a "solicitor's and moneylender's tout" named Thomas, and they had obtained large sums of money from Sir John's mother to go into business. At the request of Thomas, Sir John accepted a

number of bills, which were discounted, and the proceeds were divided among them.

Mr. Newman went on: "At his examination Sir John exhibited a vacancy of mind and dullness of understanding which might have been an assumed mask to conceal the reality of their transactions. The facts indicated that he had been the tool of stronger-willed and'unscrupulous persons, but they also showed that he had been a willing tool ready to enter into any transactions from which he could derive some pecuniary benefit, without inquiring too closely into the nature of the transactions or liow the money obtained on the strength of. his name was used," Fortunately for Sir John, a bill for £*25.000 accepted by him without consideration in -May—a week before the petition in bankruptcy was served—had not been negotiated, the official receiver added. "Utterly Unbusinesslike" Mr. B. M. C'loutman (counsel for Sir John) said that he could not dispute the facts put forward by the official receiver. It was a case of a man \yho had been the victim of an unscrupulous swindle! —a man who was utterly unbusinesslike rather than dishonest. The Registrar remarked that the bankruptcy was an unsatisfactory one. Hither Sir John was totally ignorant, or he had wilfully refused to be frank with the court in regard to his affairs. ■ He is either a fool or a rogue," the Registrar added. The discharge was refused, but Sir John was given liberty to apply to the court again in three years' time, the Registrar saying: "In the meantime he might lead a decent, honest life."