Valueless Cheque Issued On Form Borrowed From Victim

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 11, Issue 92, 24 October 1947, Page 5

Valueless Cheque Issued On Form Borrowed From Victim

Ernest Walter Healey, 36-years‘-old mechanic, pleaded guilty to two charges of false pretences, involving the issue of valueless cheques to Whakatane businesses, when he was brought before Messrs. C. H. Christensen and I. B. Hubbard, J’s. P, in the Police Court at Whakatane on Wednesday. He was remanded to the Supreme Court at Auckland for sentence.

Evidence led by Sergeant M. Farrell, who prosecuted, showed that Healey had bought a radio set worth £sl from the Whakatane Radio and Electrical Co. at about 3 o’clock on the afternoon of October 7, and had written a cheque purporting to be in payment of the full amount on a form he had borrowed from the firm and made out against an account he claimed to have in the Bank of New Zealand’s Christchurch branch.

That cheque “bounced”, as did another £l6/15/- with which he paid for a suit he bought from Mr A. H. Morpeth, local clothier, earlier in the day, using a form he told the police later the Bank had given him. Mr Morpeth gave him £5/9/6 cash in change. In a statement to Constable R. F. Julian, who questioned him about the cheques, Healey said he was drunk when he issued them. The cheques were signed by him and purported to be on behalf of the “A to Z a business with which he had been associated in Christchurch. He also said he did have an account in the Christchurch branch of the Bank, but admitted it was 12 months since he had paid anything into it. Both Morpeth and John A. W. Carter (of the Whakatane Radio and Electrical Co.), at the conclusion of their evidence were questioned by Healey as to whether or not they had considered him drunk on the day in question. Neither had. Healey was also charged with obtaining two car headlamps valued at £6/15/- and £3/10/- in cash from L. J. Mclntyre by means of a valueless cheque at Rotorua on August 12, when it was alleged he had passed himself off as a garage proprietor. He was remanded to the Magistrate’s Court at Rotorua today. He was also remanded to' appear before the Magistrate’s Cburt/St! Auckland to answer a charge that he had made a false declaration concerning the age of a girl under the Marriage Act at Timaru on June 23,