FORGERY DEFINED

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLVI, Issue 2716, 3 April 1924, Page 3

FORGERY DEFINED

THREE ESSENTIAL POINTS

What is forgery ’ In giving judgment in an Appeal Court ease at Wellington Mr Justice Sim gave a definition. Tie said that forgery at common law had been defined to be the making. with intent to defraud, of a wrifien instrument which purported to he that, which it was not. It had been held by the Court in one case that an intent to defraud was not necessary to constitute the crime of forgery under section 289 of the Criminal Code Act, 1893, now reproduced in section 290 of the Crimes Act, .1908. It was there laid down that in order to establish the offence of forgery in New Zealand three matters only were essential, namely: (1) That the document is a false document; (2) That the person charged made it knowing it to lie false: (3) That he made it with (lie intention that it should he used and acted upon as genuine. “When in the year 1893 the law was altered in New Zealand by defining forgery in such a way as to make an intent to defraud unnecessary,” said His Honour, “it. is reasonable. to conclude that the Legislature did not intend at the same time to limit in any way the definition of forgery, or to exclude any documents which otherwise would come within the scope of the Act,”