FALSE CREAM TESTS.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXV, Issue 4677, 21 March 1924, Page 4

FALSE CREAM TESTS.

HOW A FRAUD WAS WORKED.

ADMISSIONS IN FEILDING CASES.

The "faked cream” cases heard in tlie Feilding Magistrate's Court on March -1 and 5 are probably the biggest sensations yet known in connection with the dairying industry of the Dominion. The details of how easily a company was "taken down” came as a revelation.

The prosecutions showed that an employee of the Cheltenham Dairy Co., Ltd., Henry Simpson, conspired with five farmers to defraud the company of sums aggregating over £lOOO, and Sergeant J. Cahill, in his statement io the court, revealed the war in which it was done.

Sergeant. Cahill said that Simpson han been in the employ of the conm pany for about three and a half years, during which period the company found him quite satisfactory. He was considered most reliable. Some time in December last Simpson took illimmediately afterwards the manager of the company noticed that certain cream tests on Simpson’s round dropped. The drop was so great a,s ta make him suspicious. He reported the matter to the police, and it was decided that to prove the suspicions it would be weil to allow Simpson to resume work. Sopn after Simpson resumed his duties the cream tests went back to what they had been. Investigations were carried out immediately and other samples of cream were taken. It was found that the samples taken differed. Simpson was arrested on February 16 and charged with the offence, which he admitted. He told the police the whole story, which led up to the prosecution of farmers, who, the police allege, conspired with him to defraud the company. Simpson’s: statement to the police was as follows : ”1 am a cream-collector in the employ of the Cheltenham Dairy Co., Ltd., and reside at Makino. I know J. J. 3. Thomasen. He is a supplier of cream to the company. About the end ct October last he met me at his gate and spoke to me about his test being low. 1 told him that I would push liis lest up a bit for him. I straightway took a sample off the top of his can, without stirring it, and told him that that was how it was done. Following his first test Thomasen again met me at his creamstand somewhere about 10 days later and told me that he was pleased with his test. So lie had full knowledge of how it was obtained. I have been-doing the same right up to the present. I was perfectly well aware that what I was doing was not proper, and that the sam - ple pur in by me at the factory eacn day was not a true sample, as the quality was superior to that of the cream as a whole.” in his statement concerning Otto Kreegher the accused said: “Kreegher suggested to me that he would like in's test to go up. He asked me to fake a sample out of his night cream tin. as that would contain richer cream. I told him, at the time, that 1 did not feel like falling into line with him, but would do it, and I have done so since that time. What I did was to take the sample from the surface of the cream contained in the night cream tin, ivithout stirring it. Kreegher was fully aware of what was being done. The only thing that he had given me for what I have done has been about half a sack of potatoes.”

The other cases were-of a similar nature.