GUILTY OF FORGERY

New Zealand Herald, Volume 81, Issue 24850, 23 March 1944, Page 5

GUILTY OF FORGERY

FORBES SENTENCED FIVE YEARS' IMPRISONMENT (Reed. 11.15 p.m.) SYDNEY, March 22 Found guilty by a jury to-day on charges of having forged, uttered and falsified share certificates while a director of Producers and General Finance Corporation, Limited, John Woolcott Forbes was sentenced to five years' imprisonment by Mr. Justice Street. After the foreman announced the verdict, a juror startled the packed Court by telling the Judge he had been offered £2OO if he was prepared to sway the jury. He let the matter lapse until the verdict bad been reached. Then he told the other members of the jury what had happened. The Judge thanked the juror. Sentencing Forbes, His Honor said he fully agreed with the jury's finding. "It must be borne in mind," he said, "that a man of wealth and station has corresponding responsibilities which the administration of large sums of money imposes. This obligation you appear to have entirely disregarded."

In a statement from the dock after he had been convicted, Forbes said he was shocked at the dastardly methods employed by the Crown in endeavouring to find him guilty at the cost of dishonouring Australia's name. "Furthermore, I consider you did not give me a fair summing-up," said Forbes to the Judge. "I feel your sum-ming-up will go down in history as one of the most Stocking ones ever given in a British Court."

In his summing-up, Mr. Justice Street said tlio Crown rested its case on two admissions by Forbes of fabrication, and on the finding of the forged certificates. The defence said that Forbes, by his loyalty to a friend of many years' standing, took upon himself the burden of another's guilt, and ns far as the finding of the certificates was concerned had no knowledge of them whatever. Forbes said, in effect, that the crime had been perpetrated by one or more of the friends be had trusted, and that he himself was completely ignorant that he was being used for the purpose of putting these forged documents into circulation.

His Honor pointed out that both sides admitted that the share certificates themselves were false documents. It was not necessary for the Crown to show that Forbes had an actual hand in manufacturing these documents. It was sufficient for the Crown to show that Forbes was a party to their production. There could he an intent to defraud, even though nobody had lost any money from the transactions. His Honor said that while Forbes' statements from the dock must be taken into consideration, they were not evidence in the same sense as evidence given on oath and subject to cross-ex-amination. His Honor explained that as the defence had set up character, he had allowed the Crown, in reply, to submit a record of Forbes' convictions in New York last year. It was for that reason that Forbes had been allowed to make a second statement from the dock. PRISONERS' ESCAPADES GERMANS IN CANADA OTTAWA. March 21 The Minister of Defence, Colonel J. Ralston, told the House of Commons that an investigation had been started on reports that German prisoners of war had visited a saloon, taken girls out in a motor-ear, and got drunk in a hotel with their guards. The Minister added that a Canadian Army corporal, who was alleged to have accompanied the prisoners, had been arrested.