VALUELESS CHEQUES

Waikato Independent, Volume XXXVI, Issue 3190, 6 August 1936, Page 5

VALUELESS CHEQUES

SALESMAN IN COURT OFFENCE AT CAMBRIDGE A Rotorua salesman with four aliases, Leslie Alfred John Walters, aged 33, appeared in the Police Court at Hamilton on Tuesday to face four charges of obtaining money and goods by fraud by the issue of valueless cheques totalling £24 at Cambridge, Wanganui and Auckland. The accused, who was represented by Mr W. J. King, pleaded guilty and elected to be dealt with summarily on all counts. Detective-Sergeant J. Thompson, who conducted the prosecution, stated that, when interviewed, Walters had made a clean breast of the offences. At Cambridge he had paid 2d and secured a blank cheque Irovn a shop and, presenting it as a valid order for £7 to Charles Dudley Waghorne, he had received £4 7/7 in cash, an overcoat and a scraf. Similar methods had been adopted by Walters. in securing £lO from McGruers, Limited, Wanganui, on July 16, £6 from Ernest Roger Hadley at an Auckland service station on July 20, and £3 from William Sinclair Chambers at Auckland on July 21. The accused bore a formidable list of 11 convictions since 1925 and he had been discharged from prison only on June 20. There was little that could be said for the prisoner, Mr King stated, but, to a great extent, his lapse into crime had been due to drink. While serving a sentence at the National Park he had suffered severely from chronic asthma and upon his discharge continued .illness had encouraged him to take liquor. It was while under this influence that he had committed the offences. “I cannot believe that these offences are due to liquor—they require planning and a certain amount of purpose of mind,” observed Mr S. L. Paterson, S.M., in sentencing Walters to a period of reformative detention not exceeding two years. The magistrate added that he would make representations to the Prisons Board in order that he might be released to go to England, where he had been promised work by a relative. Orders would be made for the return of the overcoat and scarf which had been fraudulently obtained at Cambridge.