ROBBED PUBLIC OF £1,400

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 534, 11 December 1928, Page 15

ROBBED PUBLIC OF £1,400

BANKRUPTS IN COURT S.M. POSTPONES SENTENCE After further evidence in the charges of breaches of the Bankruptcy Act against Raymond Cecil Harding, aged 26, and William Frederick Jones. aged 38, who traded as the Harding Construction Company, was heard in the Police Court yesterday afternoon, Mr. F. K. Hunt, S.M., postponed sentence until to-morrow. Both men pleaded guilty to a joint charge of having failed, during the three years before their bankruptcy, to keep proper books and accounts. They also admitted a second joint charge of having contracted debts without reasonable expectation of paying them. Eight amounts were involved. Harding admitted a similar charge in respect to four debts. Mr. V. N. Hubble, who prosecuted, said that Harding’s whole conduct in the business had not been satisfactory. Harding had attended to practically the whole of the financial side and had interviewed most ot the business people. For Jones, Mr. Clark said that he was undoubtedly the working partner of the concern. The position of men who had paid money into the business was satisfactory, and They had gone into it with their eyes open. Jones was a married man with five children and. as he had had little to do with the finances of the company, Mr. Clark suggested that probation would meet the case. For Harding, Mr. R. D. McKay said that he was more foolish and optimistic than anything else. Regarding the acceptance of money from men and Vgiving employment to them, it could not be said that Harding or Jones had any idea of “taking the men down.” There had been none of the “cruel deception” that had been seen in some bankruptcy cases, added Air. McKay. There was no chance of either Harding or Jones getting discharge, so there would be no fear of them preying on the public. Commenting on the evidence. Air. Hunt said that it was a fact that there had been no similar prosecution for some time past. In the case before the court, the two men had robbed the public of roughly £1,400, about £BOO having been obtained in the past year. Two things prevented him from .acting immediately. One was that both men were married and had families, and the second, that he would like a report from the probation officer.