FALSE PRETENCES

Waihi Daily Telegraph, Volume XXXV, Issue 8901, 7 April 1936, Page 2

FALSE PRETENCES

YOUNG WAIHI MAN'S OFFENCES BOGUS CHEQUES ISSUED FINE OF £ls IMPOSED At the Waihi Police Court on Saturday morning a young man named Arthur Lindsay Mathers, of Waihi, 21 years of age, appeared before Messrs E. Morgan and J. Whitehead, J's.P., to answer two charges of false j pretences. The first was that accused had obtained drinks to the value of 2s and £2 18s in money at Paeroa on March 14th by means of a cheque drawn on the National Bank of New Zealand, Waihi, made payable to J. Benson and signed 0. dimming. The second count was that a week later he obtained by false pretence the sum of £3 in money by cashing a cheque with a tradesman at Tauranga, drawn on the Bank of New Zealand, Wahi, made payable to P. Stace and signed A. J. Turner. Senior-Sergeant Blake, who prosecuted, said the position was that accused cashed a cheque taken out of his own cheque book and signed 0. Cummings, at a hotel in Paeroa, receiving, after paying for drinks, £2 ISs as change. A week later he cashed another cheque for £3, signed A. J. Turner', at Tauranga.

APPEAL FOR LENIENCY Mr J. B. Beeclie, who appeared for the accused and entered a plea of guilty, said Mathers had committed an act of stupidity as well as an offence against the law. He was a hard-working lad belonging to a highly-respected family, and had a farm of his own property on the Waihi Plains. It was very difficult to understand why he had so acted and apparently could only be attributed to the fact that he was under the influence of liquor when the offences were committed. He would, in the circumstances, ask the Bench to deal as leniently as possible with the offender. What is his financial position? asked the Bench. Counsel replied that as far as his bank account was concerned he was not out of funds.

WARNING FROM BENCH The Bench said that if such was the case it made the commission of the offences more inexplicable and rather more serious, as it was really a case of forgery. In reply to the Bench Sergeant Blake said that the Act bearing on the offence provided for imprisonment up to 12 months or alternatively a fine up to £2O.

The Bench then retired for a few minutes and on the court resuming announced that it had considered the case and felt that the penalty should be imprisonment, but had decided, and trusted it would be a lesson to the young man, to impose a fine of £ls and order the restitution of the £G obtained from the respective parties. "If anything of this kind happens again there will be no fine; you will go to gaol," added the Bench, addressing accused.