ALLEGED FRAUD

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25456, 10 February 1944, Page 4

ALLEGED FRAUD

QUALITY OF TIMBER PURCHASE BY UNITED STATES (P.A.) CHRISTCHURCH, Feb. 9. “ Some person or persons almost succeeded in the perpetration of a cruel, shameful, and cowardly fraud on the Allies fight.ing for us,” .said the Crown Prosecutor, Mr A. W. Brown, in his opening address ’to the jury in the Supreme Court to-day in the trial of Wilfred Henry Banks, manager of the Papanui Timber Company. on a charge of attempting to obtain £2BO Is 3d from the United States Joint Purchasing Board for the Papanui Timber Company by means of a false pretence—namely, by representing that the quality of the timber supplied to the board was higher than in fact it was. Banks, who was represented by Mr H. F. O’Leary, of Wellington, and Mr G. G. Lockwood, pleaded not guilty. Mr Justice Northcroft presided. Mr Brown said that Banks was a well-known business man in Christchurch. In January of last year the United States Purchasing Board wanted timber to build a navy mobile hospital in New Caledonia. Orders for the timber were sent out, and through the North Canterbury Timber Merchants’ Association allocations were made among the various companies for the supply of the timber. Banks would know from the outset what grades of timber were to be supplied. The Papanui allocation was valued at about £3OOO, and that timber was delivered to the Papanui Railway Station on February 12, 1943. On February 28 the firm sent in invoices, and all that remained was for the company to get its money after the figures had been checked in Wellington. The company did not receive payment, however, because the timber did not go away. The ship did not arrive and the timber was unloaded at Christchurch in the yards, of the Jarrah and Butler Companies. In process of unloading, the timber was examined and was seen to be defective in many respects; 27.4 per cent, being condemned and a further 5.6 per cent, beihg reduced to a lower grade. “ There is no doubt that a fraud was attempted on the United States authorities,” Mr Brown concluded, “ and the Crown says that the accused must have known, as he had accepted the responsibility for the timber.” Evidence was given by William John Hobson, a deputy timber controller, who detailed the procedure of the United States Purchasing Board in purchasing timber in New Zealand; by Reginald Henry Murray, Conservator of Forests in Canterbury; by Alfred Owen Wilkinson, secretary of the North Canterbury Timber Merchants’ Association, who said the association had replaced all the faulty timber; and by James Frederick Lysaght, an officer of the State Forest Service, who had examined and regraded the timber. ~ The court then adjourned.