LETTERS OPENED.

Taranaki Daily News, 26 September 1924, Page 4

LETTERS OPENED.

A MAIL MAN’S CRIME.

MONEY NOT TAKEN. I i . PROBATION GRANTED. By Telegraph—Press Association. Auckland, Last Night. When asked to order the suppression of the name of a letter-carrier charged witfl opening a registered letter, Mr. Poynton, S.M., flatly refused at the Police Court to-day. He said public confidence in the post office must not be shaken. The accused was Albert Charles Barnes, aged 26. Chief Detective Cummings said accused opened two registered letters addressed to the same woman, but there was no suggestion that he had deprived her of any money. Apparently the money had been taken out of the letters and put back, and accused, had then given them to another postal official to hand to the addressee.

Mr. Moody, for Barnes, said the man had been suspended and would, in the natural course of events, be dismissed. Barnes had twelve years’ service.

The Bench queried whether dismissal would follow in view of the accused’s previous very good character and the fact that he had not permanently appropriated the money to his own use. The Bench decided to grant probation, but to mark its sense of the seriousness of the offence, the pro-bation would bo for two years. Even in doing that the court was showing leniency, but for that it had the lead of a Supreme Court judge, who had given probation in a very serious ease.

Chief Detective Cummings: “Even more serious than the present case, your Worship.” Mr. Poynton: “That is so.”

Chief Detective Cummings mentioned that he understood that the postal officials had decided that every such case must be brought into court. Mr. Poynton: “Quite right. It is very necessary that the confidence of the public in the post office should not be lost.”