Supreme Court Man Denies £411 Theft From Dry-cleaners

Press, Volume C, Issue 29514, 16 May 1961, Page 11

Supreme Court Man Denies £411 Theft From Dry-cleaners

A plea of not guilty was made by Gerald Raymond Augustine Wall, aged 40 when he appeared in the Supreme Court yesterday before Mr Justice Macarthur and a jury on a charge of the theft of £4ll 19s Bd, the property of Nu-Way Dry Cleaners, Ltd., by failing to account for that sum between March 20 and August 26. 1960. The trial will continue today. and is expected to conclude tomorrow. Evidence for the prosecution was still being given when the Court adjourned. During the hearing yesterday a juror became ill. His Honour, with the consent of the Crown Prosecutor (Mr P. T. Mahon) and defence counsel (Mr D. H. Hicks), excused the juror from further part in the trial. The hearing is continuing with 11 jurors. His Honour said that a provision of the Crimes Act enabled the trial to continue with fewer than 12 jurors. The juror excused was suffering pain and discomfort. Outlimng the case for the Crown. Mr Mahon said the a"cused was working for Nu-Way. Ltd., on contract. The accused operated his o'vn transport and employed his own drivers. The accused’s duties to the, company included the collection of gar. men tn for dry cleaning from houses, their transport to the company’s premises for cleaning and their delivery to the householders. System Explained

The system for this work divided Christchurch into three divisions, and the accused employed a driver for each division. The No. 1 division driver was issued with a docket book with dockets consecutively numbered from 4001 to 6000: No. 2 division had dockets numbered consecutively from 6001 to 8000: and No. 3 from 2001 to 4000 At all relevant times these were the numbers used on the different rounds. Thedockets were printed in tripS r ate in each book. A driver would call at a house and collect a garment for dry cleaning. He would write out a docket and the original was put in the garment for cleaning. When the driver returned the garment he was. in the main, paid cash for Its cleaning. The driver would enter up all the calls he made in a day book, giving the docket number and address At the end of the week, the driver would hand in his day book to the accused Where a person had given , money the day book was stamped “paid.” Where payment was still to be made the entry was put again in the back of the day book, and the one in the front was not stamped as paid. Every Friday, Mr Mahon said, the day books were handed into the accused by the drivers, and they also handed in all the money collected. The accused had the day books with all the docket numbers listed consecutively. and could check these by adding up the docket numbers stamped “paid” with the total money he had received from the drivers.

Duplicate* Taken Each Monday, the drivers got the docket books back The duplicates had been taken out by the accused snd used by him to account to the company for all the money the accused received The triplicate .docket* were I still remaining in the docket ,bocks On Mondays, the accused I would hand over all the duplicate dockets to a Miss I Smith, of the Nu-Way Comipany. She would check that , all the dockets were in | order and type out a stateIment listing all the consecuI tive docket numbers and amounts paid for each of the three rounds “This would be completed ; on Tuesday or Wednesday Miss Smith would deduct 23 per eent. from the total, the commission that the company had agreed to pay the accused under the contract The accused then paid by cheque to the company the amount he owed it each week. “The accused collected all the money from the drivers; checking with the day books and duplicate dockets. The accused then sent the dockets to the company. The company totalled up the money owing for the dry cleaning and then the accused paid this money to the company, less the 25 per cent, commission which was the reward for his work under the con-

tract. The accused had to pay his drivers, and so on, out of this 25 per cent.," Mr Mahon said. He said that this system apparently worked satisfactorily for about two years. About August, 1960. the company became concerned at a substantial drop in turnover. When the company came to examine the accused's accounts with the company over the period it was found that a number of dockets were not accounted for, although the dockets were numbered in sequence. “Not Foolproof"

“Unfortunately there does not seem to be any absolutely foolproof system of accounting, and the company’s system was no exception to this rule. Any system, it seems, can be undermined by a dishonest person and the Crown’s case is that the accused acted dishonestly,” Mr Mahon said. The company, on comparing the weekly lists of statements it made up found that although the docket numbers on each statement were consecutive, the statement totals of docket numbers did not run consecutively. For example, said Mr Mahon, if the number of dockets issued in the No. 1 round ran from 2001 to 3996. the number for the next week should run on from 3997 Instead, the company found it ran from 3000. “The company proved that almost every week on each round a small number of dockets had been suppressed This became apparent as soon as two weekly lists were compared, but unfortunately the company had not had occasion to compare the weekly lists before its examination of accounts consequent on the drop in business," Mr Mahon said. The accused was asked to send in all the triplicate dockets. Not all the amounts were able to be pin-pointed, but the sum of £4ll 19s 8d comprised the total of sums from dockets suppressed during the period March 20 to August 26, 1960 “The accused is only charged with the theft of the mopey that can be pinpointed. Not all the dockets could be pin-pointed as to the exact sum missing. Books Burned •‘After the discoveries from this period, the accused was asked by the company to supply the docket books containing the triplicates from March, 1959. to March. 1960 The accused provided the company with a few of the docket books, but said he was unable to provide the great majority because he had had a clean-up and burnt them. “The company, from its lists of weekly statements made up, was able to establish that 2500 dockets were missing during this period. The accused does not face charges arising from these missing dockets, but the Crown says you are entitled to consider this matter. “In part, you are asked by the prosecution to consider this as part of a systematic course of defalcation from March, 1959, to August, 1960. when the activities of the accused were detected.” said Mr Mahon, He said that the accused, when questioned by the manager of the company, denied he had been suppressing dockets or stealing money. The accused had sa:d that if there were any gaps in the sequence of docket numbers it probably arose from incorrect number, ing of successive docket books by the printer. The accused had said that if there was anv money unaccounted for, it might be Hie negligence or inefficiency of his employee? or on his part, but had denied that he had been dishonest. “In brief, the accused said there was probable faulty printing of the books, or muddlement by him or someone else working for him. He told the manager that he would not contest the totals of money missing adding up to £4ll 19s Bd. but said that he was not responsible for the money going missing.” said Mr Mahon. The drivers who worked for the accused during the relevant period on the three rounds would give evidence that they filled in the docket books and day books and daily accounted for all the money they received. The manager of the company would establish all the smalt amounts missing which

totalled the sum the accused was charged with stealing by failure to account. Further evidence would be brought to show the docket books were printed with the correctly numbered sequences. “The case for the Crown is that the drivers collected all the money and accounted to the accused for it. The accused got the money into his hands, deducted a portion of it almost every week, put it in his pocket, and concealed! it from the company by sup-! pression of the dockets,” Mr! Mahon concluded. Evidence Four drivers employed by the accused at the relevant time gave evidence on the lines of the opening address for the Crown. Lorraine Isabel Caroline Smith, a clerk, said she typed out the lists of money collected each week from each round from the duplicates of the dockets brought in by the accused. Cross-examined, she checked the lists for the No 1 round and found a few dockets which were cancelled because no payment had been made. Alvin Acheson Trotter, manager of the Nu-Way company, produced a report made, as a result of his investigations, containing the number of dockets missing in each round for each week in the period March 20 to August 26, 1960, and the value these dockets represented. He said that there were an additional 333 dockets missing during this period, but the value of the dockets could not be ascertained because the triplicate dockets were missing from the docket books. “I saw the accused in my office. I told him of my investigations, the manner in which I had done them, and the amount I considered was missing. I told him I thought the failing to account was deliberate and that I could not see how it could be done , accidentally.” Trotter said. He said the accused had replied he thought the gaps might be caused by faulty numbering.