CLEAN BOWLED

NZ Truth, Issue 1185, 16 August 1928, Page 7

CLEAN BOWLED

A Cricketer Who Was Bad In Slips (From "N.Z. Truth's" Dunedin Rep.) Gerald McWhirter handled a bat rather skilfully, but he was well down the averages when it -came to pushing a pen across another man's cheque-book. TP the ex-Taranaki and South Canter -' •*■ bury rep. cricketer behaves himself during the next three months as he treads the thorny path of redemption m, one of His Majesty's prisons; however, he will be out just as the new cricket season is reaching its height. If Gerald thought that he could scribble signatures to cheques on other persons' accounts just as easily as he could snick a ball through the slips, it did not take the detective force m Dunedin long to disillusion him. When he came back from the war, McWhirter settled m Timaru where a butchery business provided barely Sufficient to sustain him, his wife and three young children. Domestic trouble caused him to wander from the straight and narrow path, but he was rudely reminded on one occasion- that he had a wife 'and family still on the planet when his wife had him cast into prison, for being £13 m arrears on a maintenance order. McWhirter's fountain of material wealth became so drained that he hit upon the idea of forging a cheque which he cashed with a billiards-saloon proprietor m Hastings. Another prank was indulged m by the nomad when he forged the name of a Cromwell publican to a cheque and went along to the opposition pub to cash it. But the crowning success of his criminal career occurred at race time m Dunedin. He got into the company of a lucky punter named John Coffey who was throwing his money around m a boarding-house at St. Kilda on the night following the races. Another boarder gathered up the money, for safety, but McWhirter posed as a bosom pal of Coffey's and appointed himself guardian of . the exchequer. ' When Coffey came to, his roll had diminished to the extent of £ 9 10s. In the Supreme Court last week, Judge Ostler took a lenient view of McWhirter's behavior and sentenced him to three months' imprisonment with hard labor on the charge of forgery at Cromwell, while m the lower court, Magistrate Bartholomew imposed a similar sentence, to run concurrently, for the forgery at Hastings and the theft from Coffey.