OLD COUPLE ROBBED

Hokitika Guardian, 31 July 1931, Page 5

OLD COUPLE ROBBED

MAN CONVICTED, (By. Telegraph—Per Press Association) NELSON, July 30. At the . Supreme Court, Knox Flintoff was charged with receiving the sum of £3OO from Dorothy L. Holier, on terms requiring him to pay it to Kemball Theatres, Ltd., and that he did fraudulently omit to pay the same thereby committing theft. He was further charged with receiving £3OO from Bernard Henry Mol lev on terms requiring the same to be paid to Kernball Theatres, Ltd., and with, fraudulently omitting to do so, thereby committing theft. Summing up, Mr Justice McGregor, said that it had been clearly proved that tlie money had been paid over, and that the terms upon which it was paid over were for an investment in Kemball’s Theatres. This led to a third point. Did the accused fraudulently omit to pay the money as specified? That question was answered in the clearest way, in the fact, that it was clear that lie fraudulently converted to his own use the whole 0! the £SOO. It had been shown by the accused’s bank account that he had spent the money in paying his own bills. Yet he had the audacity to say, through his counsel, that lie lnjd invested the money for the people he had robbed. Not a penny of it had ever been invested. The accused had wormed his way into the confidence of these two old people by unworthy means, and he had then robbed them. Li fact, in one case lie bad robbed Peter to pay Paul, as be was already in trouble with a company in Wellington and lie took the old lady’s money. The jury returned a verdict of guilty Ihe prisoner was remanded for sentence.