DARK CLERK’S THEFT

New Zealand Times, Volume LI, Issue 12017, 20 December 1924, Page 5

DARK CLERK’S THEFT

NO LENIENCY POSSIBLE FOB VIO LATORS OF TRUST. JUDGE’S COMMENT. Per Press Association. AUCKLAND. December 19. Harold Keith Jones, aged. 23 yearn, a clerk, till reoently employed on the staff of the Bank'bf Now Zealand, was sentenced at the Supreme Court to undergo a period of reformative detention not to exceed two years, on a change ol forgery and uttering. . ' Mr Dickson, who represented tin Sriaoner. made a plea for probation. ones had forged a cheque for £450. ■aid counsel, and this had led to hit first appearance in court. EXEMPLARY PUNISHMENT. It was always an extreihely painful thing for. a judge to deal with a young mm just starring out in life with a decent education and upbringing, said Mr Justice Stringer. If it were only a mnttsar of considering an individual esse alone, it would be a different matter, and His Honour might feel justified in granting probation, but the punishment had to be exemplary as well as punitive. His Honour had a duty to perform. Here res a single man. with no dependants, not pressed hy necessity, but having engaged himself to be married, and not having sufficient means, he had. to use his own expression, “devised this scheme’’ so as to be able to carry out 'the ceremony in what he thought to be a becoming manner. Prior to this, the judge had quoted from prisoner’s statement, which ran: — REASONS FOR CRIME. “I discovered that 1 was not in si position financially to celebrate my wadding in such a manner as I wished to do. and I devised this scheme to forge the name of a client of the bank, to enable me to carry out mv wedding in the manner in which I thought it should be carried out.” The judges had set their faces against leniency for men who hod violated their trust when in responsible positions. except in special circumstances, said His Honour, and he could find no special circumstances here. RETURN OF MONEY. In passing sentence of two years’ reformative detention. His Honour said he would make a recommendation to the Prisons Board that Jones be placed in one of the penal institutions where he would he kept separate, as far as possible, from men of the criminal class. An order was made for the return of the money recovered when prisoner was arrested on returning from his honeymoon.