THE BANK OF VICTORIA CASE.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2710, 25 November 1881, Page 2

THE BANK OF VICTORIA CASE.

, The trial of Charles Thorpe, lately a teller in the Bank of Victoria, on the charge of stealing £2,600, the property of the bank, was commenced on October 10th. The first witness examined was Mr Matheson, the general manager of the bunk, and it was elicited from him that there was a certain officer still in the employment of the bank who, before the robbery of £2,538 in notes from the bank in September last, had denied that he hud received money on behalf of the bank for two bank drafts, while all the time he not only had received it, but had it in his possession. It was further ascertained that the stolen notes were under the custody of the same officer, in his official capacity, on the night before it was discovered they were missing, and that a brother of the officer in question had offered, if the bank could prove that his relative had stolen the notes, to repay the amount in money to the bank. Mr Shann, the assistant manager and aecountant in the bank, gave evidence about tne robbery which took place in the bank in September last, and shewed that the box in which it was supposed that the £2,640 worth of notes were contained, was handed over to the prisoner on the morning of October 7. Mr Shann also stated that the auditors were aware that be placed his cheque with the teller of the bank for some money which he drew out of the teller's cash, and said that since Thorpe’s matter had been made public he had paid interest for the monoy represented by the cheque. Mr C. H. Kent, who was referred to on the previous day as having before the robbery in September drawn some moneys on account of the bank from other institutions for which he had not accounted at the time when he ought to have accounted for them, said that he always put the money in the bank cashbox, that he had denied having received it out of spite to another officer of the bank, who was worrying him. Thorpe was finally sentenced to two years imprisonment with hard labor.