VICAR SENT TO GAOL

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 79, Issue 279, 28 November 1935, Page 9

VICAR SENT TO GAOL

THEFTS FROM SCHOOL FUNDS. Pleading guilty to four charges of theft, the vicar of Pensax, Worcestershire, was, at Worcester Quarter Quarter Sessions, recently sentenced to six months ’ imprisonment in .the second division. He ‘was Ihe Rev. Arthur Worgcr;Slade, aged 51. Mr. Donald Hurst, who prosecuted, explained that Worgcr Slade, by virtue of h_if office, became foundation school manager and school correspondent, and he and his wife, who was also a school manager, signed ‘cheques to pay bills. Worger-Slade had used money for his own purposes. One of the school managers heard that his resignation had been accepted when in fact, he had not resigned. He became suspicious and demanded a meeting. Worger-Slade refused, but the bishop ordered a meeting to be held. When the accounts were gone into Worger-Slade stated that he had used the money because he was hard up. Mr. J. Bourke, for the defence, told the Court that from the time Worgcr- , Slade came to England from Kansas he had been pursued by misfortune. He had lost £lOOO in an Insull Corporation. Passing sentence, the Recorder, Sir Reginald Coventry, declared that Wor-ger-Slade had held a position where he should have set a good example, but he had abused that position by putting his hands into the pockets of other people on four occasions in six months. Worger-Slade was made a deacon in 1906 and a priest in 1907 at Kansas. He received the archbishop’s permission to officiate at Soggeshcll from 1927 to 1928. After that he was a curate at St. Thomas’, Dudley, and became vicar j of Pensax in 1*931.