For Seven Years!

Thames Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 18599, 7 September 1932, Page 2

For Seven Years!

MAORI OFFICIAL’S THEFTS

NATIVE TRUST MONEY.

EXPENSIVE ENTERTAINMENT. (By Telegraph.—Press Association) WELLINGTON, Sept. 7 Waratana Renata Ngahana, 37, a nephew of the late Heu Heu Tukino, chief of the Ng'ati Tuwharetoa tribe, pleaded guilty before Mr Page, S.M., to-day to the theft as a servant of £1463/4/5 from the Native Trust Department. He was stated to be a member of the paramount chiefs of New Zealand, and to have very considerable interests- in lands in the Tekano district. Counsel for accused intimated that he might later be in a position to make a certain offer of restitution to the Crown. An officer of the Department, giving evidence, said accused bad given every possible assistance in tracing the misappropriation, which extended from September, 1925, to July of this year. But for his assistance it would have been very difficult to have discovered the thefts, and some might never have been discovered. A detective produced a statement in which accused said he did not drink or gamble. He-; had spent the money meeting ordinary living expenses and entertaining his numerous Maori friends when they came to Wellington. Accused was committed to the