FELL TO TEMPTATION

Dominion, Volume 20, Issue 52, 25 November 1926, Page 5

FELL TO TEMPTATION

FALSIFIED RECEIPTS

CLERK’S THEFTS FROM

CITY COUNCIL

Martiu Thomas Adams (aged 28), a clerk employed by the City Council, pleaded guilty iu the Magistrate s Court yesterday to two charges of making false receipts involving £8 13s. and causing the City Council to act upon them as genuine. Accused was further charged with stealing £llO 3s. Bd., the property of the council. Mr. C. A. L. Treadwell and Mr. S. Joll represented accused. Evidence that he had been paid £1 13s. fid. as wages due to him when he left the council’s service was given by Andrew Hunter Barber, a welder s assistant. He did not sign the receipt produced in Court. Leslie Norton Taylor, chief clerk of the tramway and electricity department, explained that accused had been einploved by the council since May, 1921, latterly as wages clerk at £312 per annum. Accused compiled the pay and wages sheets and paid wages to employees calling at the head office. “I have never met a more exemplary clerk,” declared witness, “and I was greatly surprised and shocked when I heard of the defalcations.” A Government audit inspector, William Ross McCulloch, stated that he had commenced an examination of the books of the general accounts branch of the City Council on October 29, and found tiiere was a total deficiency of £lll ss. sd.

Detective F. Sinclair said he had interviewed accused, who had admitted the offences. Accused had told witness he was satisfied that altogether he had converted to his own use £llO 3s. 9d. Owing to sickness in Ijjs wife’s family and the burden of expenditure falling upon him, accused had said he was unable to meet his obligations and fell to temptation. Accused was committed to the Supreme Court for sentence. Bail in his own recognisance of £lOO, with a similar surety, was renewed.