FALSE STATEMENTS

Evening Post, Volume CXXII, Issue 27, 31 July 1936, Page 11

FALSE STATEMENTS

UNEMPLOYMENT

CASES

NO POWER TO IMPRISON

''It is very unfortunate that the Court has no power to impose a term of imprisonment upon men who make false statements under the Unemployment Acts," said Mr. J. H. Luxford, S.M., in the Magistrate's Court today, when dealing i V ;th three charges of making false statements as to earnings brought against Herbert Henry Madams. The Unemployment Amendment Act, said Mr. Luxford, merely increased the monetary penalty, but this was quite ineffective because most of the people charged had insufficient means even to pay fines that could be imposed under the preceding Act. "When there is a bad case, 1 don't know why you do not prosecute under the Crimes Act or the Justices of the Peace Act," Mr. Luxford added to the district employment officer, Mr. E. A. Selman, who prosecuted.

"I shall submit that view to the Department," said Mr. Selman. The Department, he said, took a serious view of these cases . of false declarations. Madams had made three declarations, on May 16, June 12, and June 19, that he was unemployed and that his earnings were nil, whereas all the time he had been, and still was, in private employment. In the first week of the nil return, he was earning £4 10s and he received £5 per week subsequently. As a result of this and other false statements, the defendant had received benefits to which he was not entitled totalling £23 os.

The defendant said that his wages were £5 per week. He had five children, the eldest of whom was working. His wife was not in the best of health.

"The only way the Court can show the serious view it takes of these offences is by the amount of the monetary penalty," said Mr. Luxford. The circumstances justified the imposition of the maximum fine, he added, but that was a sum which the defendant simply was not able to pay. The defendant was fined £7 10s and. costs on the first charge and convicted and ordered to pay costs on each of the other two^ charges.

Frederick James Doell, for making a false statement that his earnings for the week preceding May 21 were nil, when in fact they were £4 10s, was fined £3 and costs. Doell had received £2 2s in sustenance to which he was not entitled.

Squire Hardy, for making a nil return under the Unemployment Act for the week ended November 15, 1935, and receiving £3 4s excess relief when he had earned £3 2s 2s, was convicted and fined £3 and costs.