ANOTHER START

Dominion, Volume 21, Issue 116, 14 February 1928, Page 13

ANOTHER START

ACCOUNTANT’S FAILURE COURT GRANTS DISCHARGE Dominion Special Service. Christchurch, February 13. Opposition to the discharge from bankruptcy of Cyril Tollman Mosley was entered in the Supreme Court to-day by Mr. R. L. Saunders on behalf of a creditor. Mr. W. R. Lascelles made an application for discharge on behalf of bankrupt, and stated that he understood that the Official Assignee agreed to the application. Mr. Saunders said that in some of the debts there were elements of fraud. By this the speaker meant fraud in its widest and most general sense. His Honour: There is no widest or narrowest sense of fraud nowadays. Do you mean equitable fraud? Braud means some conduct which shows dishonesty or a dishonest mind. I’ll not hear you on fraud on general principles, but only on the definition I have given you. Mr. Saunders said that bankrupt was just coming into civil life again and had done nothing for his creditors. When bankrupt was arrested on a charge of embezzlement of something like £BOO nothing had been disclosed at either the hieeting of creditors or when bankrupt was before the Court to show where the leakage was. Bankrupt had not submitted to a detailed examination at the meeting of creditors on the ground that such would incriminate him.

Mr. Lascelles: In the affidavit it is stated that preferential creditors have been-fully paid and satisfied. Mr. Saunders continued that bankrupt, who was a man with diplomas, should be able to get a good position and do something for the general body of creditors.

His Honour: You need not take that line. I am not a jury, you know. Mr. Lascelles stated that the preferential claims had been paid in full. Bankrupt had had two years’ reformative detention, and had come into the world to make another start. After the disaster he had been struck off the roll of the Society of Accountants and his diplomas were useless. His Honour (to Mr. Lascelles): If bankrupt abused his trust and spent considerably more than his earnings this is a bad business. Mr. Lascelles: Yes; but I am depending on his reformative detention having convinced him that the right is the only wav. Bankrupt, ■ said Mr. Lascelles, had earned the maximum remission in his reformative detention and had been given charge of an orchard of this work. His Honour: What does he want Ins discharge for now? ' Mr. Lascelles: He wants to take up the trade he learned in prison and take on a small fruit farm north of Auckland. . His Honour: Has he been provided with any capital? Mr. Lascelles: No. “Doesn’t that look like repeating the previous disaster?” commented His Honour. Mr. Lascelles: It is realised that be would have great difficulty in getting a position as bookkeeper other than an accountant, and the fruit farming is all that is left for him. The Official Assignee stated that he had no recommendation to make. It was a very difficult case. Bankrupt, he said, had paid the penalty of wrongdoing, and it was thought that probably the Court would grant the order for discharge, which would not discharge bankrupt from any debts contracted by fraud. His Honour: Are there any? The Official Assignee: There is at least one. His Honour stated that in view of what the Official Assignee had stated and in the light of the opposition being based only on generalities, he would, with a certain amount cf doubt, grant the discharge.