FORGED CHEQUES

New Zealand Herald, Volume 78, Issue 24102, 22 October 1941, Page 10

FORGED CHEQUES

REFUNDS OP MONEY LABOURER FOUND GUILTY TWO CHARGES OF UTTERING Four charges of forging cheques of a total value of £3B 2s 6cl and two of uttering were faced by Phillip Donald Martinovich, labourer, aged 29, before Mr. Justice Fair in the. Supreme Court. The Crown Prosecutor Mr. V. K. Meredith, prosecuted, and the accused conducted his own defence. Mr. Meredith said a milliners shop was broken into by a man named AVII - liam Marne Clark, and among other things he stole a cheque book trom it. Clark, who was now serving a sentence for this, would say lie got Martinovich to make out four cheques in false names. „ , . Clark cashed two of the cheques for groceries and change, said counsel. Martinovich got a hotelkeeper to cash one of them for £8 10s for him, but afterward he told the hotelkeeper the cheque was bad and redeemed it for £8 10s. Martinovich gave a tailor a cheque for £ll7 10s in payment of £.lO owing on a suit of clothes, but in this j case also he paid back the money. Mr. Meredith said the mere fact that the accused had been able to find money later did not alter the fact that the offence of forgery and uttering had already been quite complete. In answer to the accused, DetectiveSergeant Aplin said that both sums of money obtained were refunded two days after the issue of the cheques. Accused told the jury that he had no intention that the cheques should [ be acted on as genuine. He knew that he could get the money from a friend. His Honor said the offence of uttering was committed if a forged cheque was put in circulation by the fraudulent suggestion that it was good. He ! did not think the jury would have any difficulty. The jury found Martinovich guilty on all counts and he was remanded for sentence.