MISAPPROPRIATION OF MONEY

Waimate Daily Advertiser, Volume XXIII, 23 May 1922, Page 1

MISAPPROPRIATION OF MONEY

COMPANY SECRETARY CONVICTED. Press Assn.—By Tel.—Copyright. Wellington, May 21. When William Henry Pollock was placed in the dock on a charge of having stolen £9OOO odd, belonging to Messrs Nelson, Moate and Co., by which company he had been employed in the position of secretary, hi s counsel (Mr W. Perry) first called Dr W. J. Hislop to give evidence as to severe illness whhich had been suffered by the prisoner’s parents and the help which prisoner had given them. In addressing the Court, Mr Perry stressed the point that the prisoner was one who had been led to misappropriate his employers’ 'mottiey. As the result of long-continued financial difficulties, he had found himself deeply in debt and facing what was almost an impossible task, th overtaking of his liabilities. In March, 1915, he began by taking a few pounds. By June the defalcations amounted to about £6O. That amount was slightly increased during the following year. He then borrowed £l2O from a friend to pay back the money which he had taken, promising to refund the loan by monthly instalments. That he found he could not do, so he took more of hig employers’ money. When his parents died, he found himself faced with further expence. He then took to betting with the hope of making sufficient to repay all he had taken. The inevitable happened. Small bets became larger, until the sum of £9OO went between September, 1921, and last March. The prisoner had given all assistance in clearing up the matter. •

The Crown Prosecutor (Mr P. S. K. Macassey) concurred that Pollock once in the mire had started plunging, with the result that his defalcations rose rapidly. The total amount missing was £2741.

His Honour expressed deep regret to see a man of the prisoner’s gen-' eral character before him. He could not overlook the fact that during the last seven years he had been relieving himself of his difficulties at the expense of his employers. He had, moreover, falsified books in such a way that someone else might have been blamed in the event of discovery. The case which was before the Court was perhaps of the most painful type which Judges had to deal with. It was a class of case which was particularly difficult when there was no inherent vice in the prisoner. “Unfortunately all over New Zealand Judges have to deal with cases of this kind,” continued his Honour, “cases of men otherwise of good character taking their employers’ money and falsifying the books. Necessarily they have regarded these cases as occasions for sentences of imprisonment. If I were to make a sharp distinction in this case, it

would go round that I had some

cause to favour you. 1 cannot say that this case is greatly different, but I can see that it is a ease for a sentence not of the most severe type. The most severe punishment upon you is probably the remorse which you have suffered and the fact that your action has disqualified you from following such work again. The prisoner was sentenced to 18 months’ imprisonment with hard labour.