A SERIES OF CHARGES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22020, 1 August 1933, Page 7

A SERIES OF CHARGES

TRIAL OF COMPANY DIRECTOR (Pee United Peess Association.) AUCKLAND, July 31. The trial of James Milward Houston, company director, aged 44, on eight charges of fraudulently failing to account, for money, two .charges of theft, and one of forgery, was ' commenced in the Supreme Court to-day. It was alleged that on various dates between October 5, 1928, and February 11, 1933, the accused omitted,to account for £1755 which he had received on behalf of John Burns and Co., Ltd., and that on April 20, 1932, and March 31, 1033, he stole sums totalling £127, the properly of Hobart Berkel (N.Z.), Ltd. It was further alleged that the accused forged a stock sheet purporting to be a correct list of the stocks in the possession of Hobart Berkel (N.Z.), Ltd., as at March 31, 1932, and that, knowing it to be false, he caused John .Burns and Co., Ltd., to act upon it as if it were genuine. Evidence was heard on the lines of that given in the Police Court recently. Twenty-two of the 29 witnesses for the Crown had been heard, when the case was adjourned.