Court Dismisses Charge of Fraud

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 230, 17 December 1927, Page 1

Court Dismisses Charge of Fraud

SOM OF £2,165 INVOLVED N.Z. CASE HEARD IN SYDNEY By Cable.—Press Association.—Copyright Reed. 11 a.m. SYDNEY, To-day. The hearing of the fraud charge against John Robert O’Brien has concluded. Application was made for a remand to New Zealand. A constable from Wellington had been sent to escort defendant back. Mr. Mack, for the defendant, said the cable from a firm of solicitors in New Zealand, referring to a proposed settlement of the case, was clear evidence that an attempt was being made to use the police as debt collectors. If there was ever an occasion where the prosecutor’s case was not a bona fide one, it was this one. The magistrate agreed with this view, declaring that the true ends of justice were not being considered in the prosecution, and dismissed the case.—A. and N.Z.

John Robert O’Brien, engineer, who was arrested on a provisional warrant on a charge of obtaining £2,165 from Albert Pearson by false pretences at Wellington, New Zealand, appeared at the Sydney Police Court on Thursday, O’Brien said he sold Pearson a share in the New Zealand rights in a motorcar signal device, which he invented, for £1,860. He left New Zealand in order to get the invention on the Australian market.

Superintendent Mankey, who is in charge of the Sydney branch of the Criminal Investigation Department, said O’Brien had seen him in reference to the invention. Witness said he thought the invention was very ingenious.