THEFTS BY BANK CLERK

Taranaki Daily News, 22 March 1935, Page 7

THEFTS BY BANK CLERK

SERIES OF LARGE SUMS FALSIFICATION OF BOOKS. RELIEVING MAN’S DISCOVERY. WRONG COAT TAKEN IN DARK. By Telegraph—Press Association. Auckland, March 21. John Wesley Dexter, aged 26, a bank clerk, admitted in the Police Court today that while employed by the Bank of New South Wales he stole between August 1932 6 and February 1, 1935, sums totalling £1206. Another bank clerk in evidence said that on February 4 he was relieving at a city branch and at about 11.30 at night had occasion to go to a cloakroom for matches. In the darkness he put his hand in the pocket of a coat hanging from the wall, thinking that it was his own coat. In the pocket he found a number of letter and credit slips. He examined the bank notes and found that in some cases the amounts shown on the slips had been entered in the customers’ passbooks, but not in the ledgers. He also examined the tellers’ books and found that sums shown on the credit slips had not been entered there. He had reported to the manager. A detective produced a statement by Dexter admitting everything He said that about two years ago, through illness in his family, he was in financial difficulties and began stealing money paid in by customers. The method was to suppress credit slips, manipulate the ledgers and at the weekly balance deduct shortages from the larger accounts to balance the amounts stolen from the smaller ones. He kept a private note of the moneys he took. As time went on he got deeper in the mire and gambled in an attempt to retrieve his position. He had since made restitution of £69. Dexter was committed for sentence.