SUPREME COURT

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 19840, 14 May 1927, Page 7

SUPREME COURT

CHRISTCHURCH SESSIONS REFORMATIVE TREATMENT [Per Press Association.] CHRISTCHURCH, May 13. At the Supreme Court, Walter John Clark Aitchison an accountant, aged 30 years, pleaded guilty to a charge that he received various sums of money amounting in all to £1036, on terms requiring him to acount to the Todd Motor Company, and that he fradulently omitted to do so. He was ordered to bo detained for reformative treatment for a period not exceeding three years. William John Sullivan was ordered reformative treatment for a period not exceeding three years on a charge that he received £950 on terms requiring him to account for the same to the Canadian Government Mercantile Marine, and that he fradulently omitted to account for the same, thereby committing theft. RAILWAY FUNDS

SENTENCES FOR THEFT JUDGE’S STRICTURES [P*r Press Association.] L CHRISTCHURCH, May 13. In the Supreme Court on eight counts of theft from the Railway Department . and seven counts of forgery of Depart- . mental pay sheets, John Jas. Neilson , and Gavin Gordon Matson, ex-servants * of the maintenance branch, were each . sentenced to four years’ imprisonment on each charge, to which they had . pleaded guilty, the sentences to be concurrent. “From 1922 till the beginning of ’ 1927,” said his Honour, “these two ' men by a concerted and somewhat ingenous fraud succeeded in obtaining upL I wards of £6OOO in cash while in a posi- , tion of trust. The Court cannot listen "to the suggestion that the more a man 1 is trusted the more he is entitled to ’ i steal, for that is what it amounts to. I When a man is put in a position of I trust his employers trust him, and in isuch a case it is impossible to devise a [means of checking him. This is one of I the most serious cases that has come before the Court for a long time in this particular line. There are no circumstances which call for leniency. The • money stolen was spent in gambling, betting ,and riotous living ”