NOT AT THE WAR

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 57, 30 May 1927, Page 1

NOT AT THE WAR

MAN TRIES FOR PENSION A YEAR’S PROBATION Frederick William Cousins did not go to the war, although he tried to get away in October, 1917. At the present time he is 44, a widower with one child, and in a very bad state of nerves. Having been ill for nearly two years and unable to work other than to do a few odd jobs, he put in an application to the Pensions Department for a war pension on the grounds that his present state of health was due to war service and that he had been wounded at Passchendaele. His subterfuge was discovered, on looking up the Expeditionary Force records, and in the Police Court this morning he was charged with presenting to the War Pensions Department “a document which was false in an important particular.” “The Pensions Department has asked me to state that it looks on this as a very serious offence,” said Chief Detective Cummings. “These men may get away with a pension, and thus defraud the Government.” Mr. Allan Moody pleaded that Cousins was undoubtedly in a very bad state of health. No money had been actually obtained, he said, and he asked for leniency. “It all depends on his mentality,” said Mr. F. K. Hunt, S.M., and placed Cousins on probation for 12 months.