MAORI DEFRAUDED

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 673, 27 May 1929, Page 11

MAORI DEFRAUDED

POSTMASTER GETS HIS OWN BACK COURT’S LENIENT VIEW A clever ruse employed by Frank Bede Carroll to extract payment of a small debt from a difficult customer resulted in his appearance at the Police Court this morning. Carroll, one of three white men in the district, was storekeeper and postmaster at Whangape. in the Far North. r £ , ME charge against Carroll, whose age was given as 20. was that he forged a parcel wrapper at ’Whangape on October 28, altering the sum of £1 10s 9d to £2 10s 9d. Chief-Detective Hammond was of the opinion that the charge could be reduced to theft anil dealt with summarily. Carroll had been postmaster for 12 months at Whangape. His story was that a native named Rudolf owed him some money for stores and had refused to pay. A parcel arrived for the Maori and Carroll had altered the amount of duty written on the wrapper from £1 10s 9d to £2 10s 9d. Whether the money had been put to the account of the firm for whom accused had acted as manager. Mr. Hammond said he was not aware. Mr. Fraer endorsed the suggestion that the charge should be reduced to theft. There was no don # that the pound had been credited to the firm. “Carroll had £GOO in his own post office s $ ings bank account at the time,” lie urged. There were only three whites in the place and Carroll had been storekeeper, postmaster, harbour master, justice of the peace, and. in fact, Mayor of the town without an election. WAITED HIS CHANCE “He was sent to the place with instructions from liis employers iliat credit was to be kept down and as much as possible of a considerable amount of book debts gathered in.” continued counsel. “He refused to give any credit and succeeded in getting £6OO of the outstanding amount. The native, Rudolf, came to him with a hard luck story about starvation and was given credit to the extent of £1 10s on the understanding that the money was paid back jvithin two weeks. This was not done, and Carroll heard that the man was going about boasting that he would ne # pay the debt.” Counsel told the court that Carroll had decided to wait his chance to get the money back. “One day a parcel arrived for Rudolf 'with £1 10s 9d duty to pay on it,” he continued. “The Maori came in with a, roll of notes and Carroll told him that the amount was £1 more than it really was. It was only a piece Of bluff and there was no gain to Carroll in it. The native made inquiries, having been told that the duty was unusually high, and discovered what had been done.” Mr. Fraer produced references from Carroll’s employer. Mr. F. K. Hunt, S.M., agreed to reduce the charge to one of false pretences, but could not see his way to dismissing the charge as trivial, as counsel had suggested. He agreed, however, that the man had held a good character hitherto and that, although he had broken the law, it had not been for his own benefit. The charge was dismissed under the First Offenders’ Probation Act, 1920. An appeal for suppression of the name was not granted, the magistrate considering that Carroll was a little too old to receive the benefit of it. “This is equivalent to an acquittal, anyway,” he said. Mr. Fraer: You and I understand it as such, but do the general public? This sort of thing is always thrown up at a man-.