COUNTY LOSES £50,000

New Zealand Times, Volume L, Issue 11435, 3 February 1923, Page 2

COUNTY LOSES £50,000

FRAUDS BY CLERK WHO SHOT HIMSELF. ASTONISHING ABSENCE OF CHEIfK. LONDON, December 6. The astonishing story of how George Harvey, a clerk to the Norfolk County Council, whose salary was £6 a week, defrauded that authority of .£50,000, is revealed in a report issued to the finance committee by Mr Douglas Roberts, Inspector of Audits to the Ministry of Health. During the summer, when it was suspected that Harvey was responsible for these defalcations, a warrant, was issued for iiis arrest and he shot himself in a garage at Norwich. A RECKLESS GAMBLER.

Harvey indulged in reckless gambling and lived in luxurious stylo. At the County Council Mr George Edwards, exM.P., described! him as a £3OO year man who had been living at the rate of £3OOO a year. A special meeting of the Norfolk County Council will be held to consider the defalcations. The finance committee have consulted counsel, and are recommending the council to proceed against the bank to recover all payments made by them on forged cheques. The committee also recommended that the Ministry of Health he asked to recognise their responsibility for the failure of their auditors in the performance of their duty. HOW IT WAS DONE. The inspector’s report shows' that the extent of the defalcations is £49,730, extending over seven years. Harvey, as chief clerk to the county accountant, had charge of tho accounts of the Highways Department. For his own purposes he forged signatures to cheques, sending a subordinate to the hank to draw the money for him. He made inflated expenditure entries in the accountant’s highway cash book, and to get these inflated' entries through audit he altered figures during the progress of the audit. APPORTIONING THE BLAME. "The failure to prevent the fraud,” says the inspector, "rests chiefly on the shoulders of the County Accountant, who left the whole control of this section entirely in Harvey’s hande, and neglected to establish any system of check upon him. “In failing to draw the attention of the county council to the weakness of their payment system in the highways department the auditors are much to blame " Finally, the inspector declares that the County Council itself is not wholly free from blame. It was common knowledge that for a long time Harvey had been betting and _ living extravagantly, and from the Chief Constable’s statement it appuored that this, fact had been mentioned to the chairman of the finance committee, end yet it was not until the early part of the present year, and after Harvey had been absenting himself from tho office, that any action was taken.