POSTMASTER’S THEFTS

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 74, Issue 148, 25 June 1931, Page 6

POSTMASTER’S THEFTS

GAMBLING ON RACES. WAR’S EFFECT UN HEALTH. DETENTION FOR TWO YEARS. AUCKLAND. June 23. 'l’lie ex postmaster at Mount Eden William Richard Holmes, aged 46 (Mr Conlan), appeared in the Supreme Court yesterday for sentence on four charge?of theft of Government money!?. Mr Conlan said the prisoner join© I the postal department in 1900 ami had served fo” 31 years. During the last nine years he had been postmaster in charge of the Mount Eden post office. He had a wife and one child. Until "H months ago his career wa’ a good one and ho was highly thought of. He h r >d apparently no vices at all. The thefts began to meet small gambling debt s The prisoner tried to recover himself and put more and more on the total)sator, until the sum tp.kon altogether amounted to £6OO, from which, counsel was informed, the prisoner received no benefit at all. He lost consistently.

Prisoner had not opened any posts' packets or taken anything from Savings Bark depositors. The moneys taken belonged purely to the Government. Holmes would, no doubt, !oso the superannuation to which he might have looked forward in another four rears and toward which he had paid £3OO. He stood before tho Court s ruined man. with his occupation gone and his friends estranged. War Time Experiences. In serving his country in Franc? he had been badly gassed, and was one of three survivors of a group of whom 10 had been killed. He still suffen-.i very much from shellshock am) a long term of imprisonment was likely t-» have a bad effect on his health. Dr. S. A. Bull, who said he had had much experience of war injuries am! the effects of gassiig, said there was no doubt that Holmes’ health had been to a certain extent perinanentlv injure'!. No doubt a 10-ng-con tin tied term of close confinement would be prejmlieinl to his health. In war service tho rank and file were encouraged to be reckless ami to take chances involving ven serious risk, and that, was to a certairi extent carried over into private life. They took chances that no sane person would consider lie had any right to take. Tho case was an extremely sad om-. said Air Meredith, Crown Prosecutor. A man who had had a fine career found it absolutely shattered by his own wrong-doing. Holding a position of trust ho had embezzled a considerable sum of money, and the case did not differ from many in which breach of trust was committed. Comment by Judge. Air Justice Smith, who presided. I it was exceedingly painful to have to •leal with this case. The moneys taken amounted to £690, and he could no! shut his eyes to the fact, that the prsoner falsified the books. He survived one or perhaps more inspections, and was caught red-handed in falsifying the books on the occasion (if the last in spcction. While his Honour quite agreed with Dr. Bull’s view that experiences in the army might hate induced a certain recklessness he could not accept that as an excuse for a dereliction of duty in a man occupying a responsible position in the public service. In serving the sentence his Honour proposed to inflict. Holmes would not, be in any way subject to close confinement. He took it that the amount he had paid into superanuutaion would be applied to the reduction of the amount stolen. He would be ordered to bp detained for reformative purposes for a period in»’ exceeding two years.