BANKRUPT’S DEBTS

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 18585, 20 December 1934, Page 14

BANKRUPT’S DEBTS

ASSIGNMENT VALID

THEFTS TOTAL £3721

(Per Press Association.) WELLINGTON, this day. • Holding that an assignment of £635 by Archibald Walter McColl, in 1932, was induced in good faith, and without the knowledge that McColl was insolvent, Mr. Justice Ostler dismissed a motion for an order declaring the assignment to be fraudulent and void as against the Official Assignee. McColl was declared bankrupt in August this year. He had been accountant and auditor of the Hope Gibbons family. The assignment was*;: procured when it was discovered that Du Coll owed money to members of Hope Gibbons stall','but next day it was discovered that be had been systematically stealing substantial sums, and, later still, after he bad been imprisoned, it was found that the total thefts amounted to £3721, and that his indebtedness at the date of the assignment was over £6OOO,- in addition to the debts satisfied 'by the assignment.

The judge said that in his opinion, and on the farts proved, the family had discharged the onus of proving that they acted in good faith, and the assignment was protected under section 82 of the Bankruptcy Act.