DISQUIETING FACT

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 11, 28 January 1937, Page 6

DISQUIETING FACT

-Preat ABSociation.i

Defalcations Undetected For SixYears

PUBLIC TRUST CLERK

{By TsJegraph-

WELLINGTON, Last Night. The feeling'of disquiet caused by tho fact that a clerk 's defalcations extendmg over .a period of six years in the Public Trust Office could pass undetected was .ref erred to in the ^Supreme Oourt by Sir John.Eeed when he sentence.d Arthur Alton Burd, aged 40, to two years \ reformative detention. The money mentioned in the charge was £282 8/8. "I suppose .your defalcations would have been detected sooner or later, but it is a little disquieting that such things can go on in an ofiice like the Public Trust for years without being discovered," said Sir John. "It may well be that the system at that office is not to blame; it may be that' yonr frauds were designed in such a way as to defy the audit system of the office, so that I make no comment. -It would be unfair for me to.make any comment further tban to say what I have said. It is disturbing that frauds such as yours can go on in an office like the Public Trust for so long a period without diseovery, but I have no doubt that every effort will be made to prevent similar happenings in future." Sir John said, however, that it was a fact the prisoner did bring his course of crime to a stop when apparently there was no "immediate fear of diseovery.