A CARELESS SOLICITOR.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19940, 6 November 1926, Page 10

A CARELESS SOLICITOR.

TRUST ACCOUNT REGULATIONS. FINE OF £SO IMPOSED. (Special to Daily Times.) AUCKLAND, November 5. A Paeroa solicitor, A. R. Gorrie, for failing to have his trust account audited for tne year ended March 31 last, was lined £SU and costs by Mr C. R. Orr Walker at the Police Court this morning. Mr Towle appeared for defendant, who admitted the charge. Mr V N. Hubble, who prosecuted on behalf of the Crown-solicitor, Wellington, said that regulations required that a certificate should be forwarded by June 30. If tho failure to send a certificate continued for one month afterwards an offence was committed. Defendant was liable to a minimum fine of £SO or a maximum of £IOO. Gorrie had been written to on three different occasions apart from the ordinary notice sent. ‘'There are no irregularities involved. There has only been slackness on defendant’s part,” said Mr Towle. Tho offence was merely failure on Gorrie’s part to forward his certificate within tho proscribed time. In a letter which counsel handed to the magistrate tho auditor stated that defendant’s affairs were in perfect order. Mr Hubble remarked that he had no reason to believe that there was anything wrong with defendant’s trust account. It had never been suggested. The Magistrate said that in the circumstances tho minimum fine would be imposed.