FAILING TO KEEP BOOKS

Timaru Herald, Volume XIIIC, Issue 14221, 10 June 1910, Page 7

FAILING TO KEEP BOOKS

A BUILDER IMPRISONED. At the Supreme Court at luvereara few days ago, before Mr Justice j a building contractor aged 28 was convicted on a charge of failing to keep such books of account as wyre proper and would at any time disclose his financiol position. ir'is deficiency was £672. The Crown Prosecutor in opening said the accused started on a small capital and did a large number, of contracts. He got on all right while contracts were going and the moneys 'coming in. Apparently he didn't reaalise that lie was going back almost from the very beginning, and until just on the time of his bankruptcy he didn't really know what his position' was. It was in the public interest that when a man became bankrupt he should bo able to show how he ' lost money, and also consequently in- the •public interest that when a man failed to keep books that would disclose where his money went he should be punished. Counsel for the defence said that the accused's position was to some extent the result of the practice of travellers of wholesale firms in keen com- \ petition taking orders without enquiry j into the position of the man giving | the order, allowing the credit to go on j and then coming down suddenly for a squaring up. There was no imputa- | tion of fraud, accused had failed through his ignorance of book-keeping. In summing up, His Honour said that a great part of the trouble in ( -such cases arose through men not fbokiug facts in the face, but muddling.' on until their creditors were let in. It was really to protect bankrupts against themselves as well as to protect their creditors that it was an offence to fail to keep proper books. It was no defence that the bankrupt did not know he had to keep certain books or did" not know how to keep them. That would have weight only in considering the degree of punishment. If a man did not know how to keep accounts and went into business it was his duty to get someone to keep his books for him. His ignorance was no excuse against the law. which was made for the purpose of punishing fraud, but "for the purpose , of protecting bankrupts' against them- ] selves. |

The_.iury found accused guilty, adding n. recommendation to mercy. His Honour said thnt it would he absurd to apply the- provisionsyof the Prohation Apt in cases of this kind. It ivonld. defeat the ohiect of the Act if it were so apnlied. He thoughtaccused should he detained for a short time, not as a criminal prisoner but as a "misdemeanant of the 'first-class^.as

if he had been imprisoned for contempt of Court. Ho would not have hard labour, or have to wear prison clothes or consort with other prisoners. The sentence was that accused be imprisoned for one month without hard labour, in the first division. That simply meant detention.