SOLD HIS WAR PENSION

Stratford Evening Post, Volume II, Issue 238, 9 May 1933, Page 3

SOLD HIS WAR PENSION

Admission by Bankrupt BOUGHT HOUSE WITH MONEY An admission by a bankrupt tramway employee in Melbourne that he had sold his war pension of 10s 6d a week to the Repatriation Department for a lump sum surprised officials and counsel in the Bankruptcy Court recently in the course of the " public examination of Thomas Lindsay Brien, whose estate was sequestrated on his own petition in September last. Brien told the Court that he bought, a house on the Credit Fonder system from the State Savings Bank in 192 G and paid a deposit of £125. When asked how he obtained the money he said he sold his war pension. The Registrar: How did you manage that? Brien: I sold the pension to the Repatriation Department and I was paid a lump sum of £275. The Registrar: I did not think you could do that. You compounded with the Repatriation Department? Counsel for the Official Receiver: I did not think they could do that. I never thought that a war pension could be compounded. It seems a peculiar transaction to me. Brien: I think there was some hitch about it afterwards. The Registrar: Is the injury in respect to which you received the pension cured?—No. I am attending the department at px - esent. What is the department doing for you —giving you another pension?—No, lam getting free treatment. Brien added that he had used the balance of the £275 to pay some of his debts, but since then he had fallen into debt again. He had been unable to keep up his payments on his house and the bank had seized it. Officials of the Repatriation Department explained subsequently that the practice of making lump sum pension payments had been discontinued several years ago as a matter of Ministerial policy. It was followed only if the pension was small and the injury permanent and stationary.