FAILED TO ACCOUNT

Taranaki Daily News, 13 February 1935, Page 5

FAILED TO ACCOUNT

GAOL FOR COLLECTOR OF DEBTS. SUGGESTION OF MUDDLEMENT. By Telegraph—Press Association. Wellington, Last Night. Lionel Arthur Howard, aged 31, an agent, was sentenced to 18 months’ reformative detention by Mr. W. F. Stilwell, S.M., in the Magistrate’s Court to-day on a charge of failing to account for £36 18s to W. P. Somerville, thereby committing theft. Detective-Sergeant Revell said that for the past two and a-half years Howard had been carrying on the business of a debt collecting agency under the name of The New Zealand Collection Service. He had collected a sum on behalf of Somerville and failed to account for it. When interviewed by Detective Murray, he made a statement in which he said he found that a commission of 10 per cent, was not sufficient to cover his expenses. Not only had he failed to account to Somerville but he had also failed to account to other clients for sums totalling about £4OO. He neither drank nor gambled and the money was used in the running of his business. For Howard Mr. W. P. Pringle said actually the shortages amounting to £4OO applied to only* a small number of clients. One of the clients had. seen fit to prosecute and the others had not. Howard, had been in business for two and a-half years and during that time he had collected more than £3200 for various clients, including men to whom he now owed money. His present position was due to lack of business ability in the handling of trust money and keeping of proper books of accounts. “I have no doubt there may be some degree of truth in the suggestion that his position is due to muddlement,” said Mr. Stilwell, “but the offences continued over about two years and that is an aspect that must be seriously considered.”