WRONGFUL CONVERSION.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19067, 12 January 1924, Page 5

WRONGFUL CONVERSION.

£2369 INVOLVED. TRUSTEE PLEADS GUILTY. COMMITTED FOR SENTENCE. A coso of wrongful conversion of trust funds that has been before the City Polices Court for some time was concluded yesterday as far as that court is concerned. Wilson Hodges pleaded guilty to having converted to his own uso moneys totalling £2369 Is Id. Tho accused, who was not represented by counsel, was a, trustee of the estate of' tho late I>r George Hodges, of Port Chalmers. Detective Beer prosecuted. Mr H. W. Bundle, fe.M., was on the boned. Arthur Evans Dobbie, deputy-registrar of tho Supreme Court, Dunedin, produced tho will, dated February 20, 1907, of tho lata Dr George Hodges, of Port Chalmers. Ho ,vud that the deceased died in July, 1919. Tho trustees appointed were John Campbell Hodges and Wilson Hodges, and on the former renouncing his right to bo a trustee tho accused became solo trustee-. The estate was worth £3500. Martha Hodges, widow of tho late Dr George Hodges, said that the accused, her brother-in-law, was the trustee in her husband’s estate. For the two and a-half years following August, 1919, she had received £l6 per month from tho accused, and for tho next year £2O a month. In February, 1923, the payments had ceased altogether. Tho accused, on her behalf, had deposited £250 on a house in Georg© street. The total amount she had received from tho ©state was £1991 os. George Frederick Booth, rector of the Port Chalmers District High School, said that, he was treasurer of tho Deacons’ Court of the Port Chalmers Presbyterian Church. In March, 1920, the church bought the residence of the late Dr George Hodges for £2500. The amounts paid in deposits aiid interest from March 11, 1920, to April /, 1921, totalled £1561, and that money was paid by cheque to. Wilson Pledges. Ho produced receipts to that effect. The amount of the remaining mortgage was £IOSO, and that was later transferred. Dr William Henry Borrio, Port Chalmers, said that he was in partnership with the late Dr Hodges until a few months before the latter’s death. After Dr Hodge's death witness collected accounts amounting to £534 14s 3d, and sent them to the accused. Those payments were made from September 4, 1919, to April 27, 1921, and on December 23, 1919, the sum of £4l 11s for instruments and books sold to another doctor was sent to the accused. That amount was not included in the total of £534 14s 3d. Witness produced an acknowledgment of receipt by the accused of that amount. Garth Gallaway. solicitor, said that his firm. Callan and' Gallaway, acted for tho kite Dr Hodges. The deceased had owned a neuse at Warrington which had been sold, and the net proceeds amounted to £499 18s 6d. The. amount had been paid to Wilson Hodges, and witness produced a receipt for it. Hector Faulkner Munro Mercer, accountant, said that the late Dr Hodges had been a subscriber to the Otago Mutual StarrBowkett Society. Witness had paid throe dividends, amounting to £SO, to Wilson llodires as trustee of the estate.

William Henry Patrick, law clerk, formerly employed by Mr Plaggitt, said that on July 8, ” 1921, he had transferred a mortgage held by the accused on tho Presbyterian manse, Port Chalmers. The amount was £IOSO, and of this £IOO6 8s 4d was paid to tho representative of the accused.

John ChalHs. ledgcrkoeper at the Bank of New Zealand, said that he did not know the accused. A man named Wilson Hodges had, on November 5, 1919, opened a trust account with the hank, depositing £IOO on that date. From then till March 31. 1923. the total amount paid in was £I4BO 11s lid. The whole of the amount had been withdrawn by May 5, 1925, ami the account had been closed. Thomas George Hirst, accountant, Bank of Australasia, Invercargill, said that the accused had a private and a trust account with that bank for two years. In August, 1919, the accused deposited for safe keeping four hearer war bonds of £IOO each, hut these were afterwards used as security for advances. Witness gave the numbers of the bonds two of which were due on December 15, 1920, and the other two wore due on September 1, 1930. In January. 1921 two further bearer bonds for £IOO each were lodged, and of these one was due in April, 1938, and the other in November, 1938. These were also deposited as security for advances. The interest on the bonds was collected from time to time and the amounts credited to the accused’s ordinary account. The bonds maturing in 1920 were cashed, on the due date, and the proceeds also credited to the accused's ordinary account. Two other bonds were sold at the accused’s direction on May 31, 1922, for £lB9 3s 4d, and the amount credited to his ordinary account. On June 1, 1922, another two bonds were sold at the accused’s direction for £lB5 14s 3d, and the amount was credited as before. The total amount paid into this account (by direction of the accused) in respect of principal and interest was £628 9s Yd. These bonds had nothing whatever to do with the accused’s trust account, which opened in 1914. In reply to a question by the accused, witness said that ho had no knowledge of the purchase of two of the six bonds out of the proceeds of two others of the six. Dr Eosa Collier, school medical officer, Invercargill, said that at the beginning of 1920 she was practising her profession at Tort Chalmers. In January that year she leased a house from the trustee of the estate of the late Dr Hodges at £l3 a month. She had paid in all £3B in rent, and tlie cheques for that amount had been made payable to Wilson Hodges, Invercargill. Her bank book showed that those cheques had been cashed. She left the house on March 31.

Detective Lean said that on January 2 of this year the accused told him that ho had made a statement, which he produced, to Detective Cartcll, of Invercargill. V. 1 ness read the statement over to the accused. who acknowledged that the statement was correct and the signature his. The accused said that he wished to give any assistance he could in clearing the matter up. He had interviewed the accused at the police station that morning {January 11), and told him that two witnesses from Invercargill could not get to Dunedin. The accused said that lie would admit having received from one of these £lB9 3s 4d and from the other £lB5 14a 3d for two war bonds in each case. The accused had admitted converting those amounts to his own use, and also the amount of the (balance received on the house at Port Chalmers; that the total amount converted to his own use was £2569 Is Id —the amount stated in the charge. The accused then pleaded guilty, and was committed to the Supreme Court for sentence.