MAIL BAG OPENED

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 74, Issue 146, 23 June 1931, Page 12

MAIL BAG OPENED

MAORI BEFORE COURT REMANDED FOR SENTENCE. Charged with opening a mail bag at Pipiriki on April 10 ami with furgiug cheque, Kopek c Rukuwai, a Maori, was yesterday remanded to the Supreme : Court tor sentence after pleading i guilty to both charges. .Detective ' Walsh conducted the case for the police. Herbert Davis, employed at the niis- | siou station at Jerusalem, said the | Sisters at the mission conducted a Post Office. At 6.20 a.m. on April 10, he took charge of a sealed mail-bag to I be taken to the river steamer. The boat had not arrived ami there was no sign of anybody on the wharf. He left the bag on the wharf and went back to the township to get a suit case. He then saw Rukuwai about a chain up from the wharf. When he returned the steamer was in and the mail bag on it. Witness was quite sure there was no one else about other than Rukuwai. Christopher Mulholland. supervisor of mails at Wanganui, said that the Jerusalem mailbag seal was missing on that day. There were no letters in the bag. The advice notice, always iu a mail bag, was not there. Mrs Jessie Lind, manageress of Pipiriki House, identified a cheque as one cashed by a Maori girl on May 28. It was drawn and paid “Shelley” and endorsed “Shelley.” Augustine Vincent Venning, Roman Catholic priest in charge of the Mission Station at Jerusalem, said he drew the cheque on April 8 for £1 9s 3d in favour of “Shell.” The cheque date had been changed to April 28, and the letters “ey” on the end of Shell' were not his handwriting. The endorsement on the back was not in his handwriting. The cheque was in a letter to the manager of the Shell Oil Company, Wellington. It was posted on the night of April 9 at. Jerusalem. The letter should have left Jerusalem on April 10. It was not impossible, but improbable, that mail could be stolen from the bags en route. Accused had no authority to have the cheque in his possession. Witness posted between 15 and 20 letters and was quite sure that about a dozen had not reached their destinations. Up to last Friday another cheque posted on April 9 had not been presented at the bank.

Leo Revell, detective stationed at Wanganui, said that on the night of June 16 he located accused at To Puha on the Wanganui River. Ho then showed accused the cheque and accused said ho had opened the mail bag and taken quite a number of letters out. He admitted changing the cheque. Accused said he had given the cheque to a niece and got her to cash it at Pipiriki House. The girl had no idea what was in the cheque and he had led her to believe that he had come by the cheque quite honestly. Witness read out a statement made by accused who there stated that his wife had been ill and he had wanted money to send her to the Ractiht hospital. The accused admitted taking the letters from the bag. He had burned the other cheque and had got some money from two of the letters. Accused pleaded guilty and was remanded to appear at the Supreme Court at Wellington for sentence.