THE TAPANUI CLERK OF COURT.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 6739, 20 September 1883, Page 3

THE TAPANUI CLERK OF COURT.

(Haneard}

Mr Pyke asked the Minister of Justice whether it is a fact that the acting-clerk of Court at Tapanui has been fined in an amount equal to two years' salary for a trifling breach of the departmental regulations. Tho question referred to a Mr Colbourne, who, it was reported in the Press, was employed as actingclerk of the Court at Tapanui at a salary of £10 per annum, and who was fined £20 for some delay in forwarding his cashbook to the head ■office. He (Mr Pyke) did not understand that there was any charge against Mr Colbourne of dishonesty, but merely that' from some unavoidable cause he did not forward his cashbook within tho departmental time. : Mr Conolly said the information of the honourable gentleman was bo far correct that Hiis Mr Colbourne was acting clerk at Tapanui, at a salary of £10 per annum. He was charged by the Audit Department with a breach of the 78ih section of the Public Revenues Act of 1878, which provided as follows :—:

"Every person refusing or neglecting to rnako any return or furnish any account, vouchers, or other papers which he is toquired to make or furnish under the provisions of this Act/shall be liable to a penalty not exceeding twenty pounds." :' He appeared to havo been fined the full amount, and his conduct, as far as he (Mr Conolly) was informed by the Audit Department, had been extremely contumacious. During the period that he was cleric at Tapanui ho only forw/irded one account, whereas he ought to have sent a very considerable number. He was written to repeatedly by both the Audit and Treasury Departments), but he never would account until at last he was threatened with proceedings under the Act. He then came up to Wellington, but, instead of rendering thb account even then, ;ho went to a firm of solicitors, and through ; them sent in Borne forms, which were neither certified nor oven signed by him, and nothing 'could be got from him. These accounts, therefore, were so much waste-paper, and, as he persisted in rendering no account at all, it appeared that the Audit Department thought it a proper course to prosecute him, and the case was treated as an aggravated one. Up to this time no accounts had been furnished by this person.. . i Colbourne, as we stated yesterday, is now serving a sentence in gaol for failing to pay the fine.