FORGED NOTES

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 1, Issue 150, 18 February 1932, Page 5

FORGED NOTES

(Press Assn.-

found in tin RELIEF WORKER FOUND GUILTY ON CHARGE OF UTT£RING NOT LINKED WITH FORGERS

-By Telegraph — Copyright.)

AUCKLAND, Wednesday. The seriousness of the crime of eirculating forged bank notes was emphasised by Mr. Justice Herdman, when sentencing Harry Dawson in the Supreme Court. Dawson had pleaded guilty to eharges of uttering six Bank of New South Wales £1 notes, and of having 475 of them in his possession. ' Counsel said Dawson was a mari*ied man with four young children. Ile lost his position when the company that was employing him went into liquidation. He was doing relief work, and during this time found a tin containing a numher of bank hotes. He thought that if he brought this to the notice of the police he might get into trouble, so he took the notes home. He became completely out of work, and succumbed to temptation and circulated about ten of the notes. A Serious Matter The Crown Prosecutor said the passing of spurious notes was a serious matter, hut there was nothing to indicate that Dawson was in any way party to the original forging of them. He might have known of it, but there was nothing to link him up with the forgers. How he became possessed of the notes was not known. His Honour said he had looked through the deposition and agreed with the council for the Crown that there appeared to be nothing in them to show that Dawson was actually a party to the manufacture of the notes. Nevertheless, he knew them to be forged. and .on several oeeasions he circulated them. A serious point Was that he was found in possession of a large number. "Distribution of these bank notes among the public is a matter I regard as very grave indeed," said His Honour, "and I am bound to mete out punishment that will warn those who contemplate practices of this kind thdt the consequences are serious." Dawson was sentenced to be detained for reformative purposes for a period not exceeding three years.