DREW DOLE FOR SIX YEARS

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 189, 31 October 1927, Page 11

DREW DOLE FOR SIX YEARS

THEN GOT GAOL FOR FIVE Albert William Gorham, aged 47, a clerk, pleaded guilty at the Old Bailey to forging claims for unemployment benefit and obtaining the dole by false pretences. Mr. G. B. McClure, for the Ministry of Labour, said that in December, 1920, when Gorham was released from prison, he took the name of Newcombe and was employed in that name until May, 1921. He was then entitled to draw out-of-work benefit and he drew it in the name of Newcombe. That seemed to be the beginning of a long scheme of fraud which required forgeries to be committed every week. He gave the names of fictitious people and drew money on their behalf and also for wives and children who did not exist. When the Ministry wrote to Gorham asking about his employers he was able to give them a satisfactory answer. The fraud, which was practically undiscoverable, went on for six years and three months, and in that time Gorham obtained £733 from the Ministry. The matter was discovered last month, when Gorham was arrested for being in unlawful possession of unemployment insurance stamps. In passing sentence of five years’ penal servitude, the Recorder, Sir Ernest Wild, K.C., said that no blame attached to the Ministry of Labour. Only by accident was the fraud discovered.