HONEYMOON ENDS.

Hokitika Guardian, 22 December 1924, Page 4

HONEYMOON ENDS.

TWO YEARS’ DETENTION. J FORGEDY ]iY BANE CLERK. i AUCKLAND, December 19. ILimld Keith .Julies, aged 20, n clerk till recently employed oil the stall’ of ihe Bank of New Zealand, was sentenced at the Supreme Court to undergo a jieriod of reformative detention not to exceed two years on it charge of forgery and uttering. -Mr Diekson, who represented prisoner, made ;i plea for prohation. Jones Imd forced a cheque for C 150, saitl (onnsel, and this led lo his lirst appearance in Court. It was always an extremely painful tiling for a Judge to deal with a young man just starting out in life with it decent education and upbringing, siiid .Mr Justice Stringer. If it were only :i imifter of considering an intlividmil case alone it would he a different matter. and he might feel .instilled in erantine; prohation. hilt the punishment hail to he exemplary its well its punitive, lie had a duty to perform. Mere was a single man with no dependents. not pressed by necessity, lint having engaged himself to he married, and not havine sufficient means, lie had, to use his own expression, "devised this schem.e ” so as to he able to carry out the ceremony is what he thought to he a becoming manner. Prior to this, the Judge had quoted from prisoner’s statement, which ran:

“ I discovered that I was not in a position fill a tu-ia Ily to celebrate my wedding in such a manner as I wished to do, and I devised this scheme to forge the name of a client of the hank to enable me to carry out mv wedding in the manner in which I thought it should be carried out.” Judges had set their faces against leniency for men who had violated their trust when in responsible positions except in special circumstances, lie could find no special circumstances here. In passim; sentence of two years’ reformative detention. his Honour said be would make a recommendation to the Prisons Hoard that Jones be placed in one of t..e penal institutions, where he would b 0 kept separate as far as possible from men of the criminal class. An order was made for the return of the money recovered when the prisoner was arrested on returning; fiom his honeymoon.