FIVE MEN GAOLED

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 568, 22 January 1929, Page 13

FIVE MEN GAOLED

RESULT OF R.S.A. FRAUDS “NOTHING TO SAY” Having been remanded for sentence on charges of defrauding and attempting to defraud the Returned Soldiers’ Association, five disillusioned financial experts stood in the Police Court dock this morning. The penalty imposed was * >ne month’s imprisonment for each man. Robert Morton, *iged 32, James Henry Nicol, William Lawrence Row lor, aged 39, Albert Joseph Hill, aged 41. and John Arthur Mee. aged 32, were the men who were convicted on fraud charges last week. The system on which they based their schemes was outlined by Chief-Detective Hammond. The association was distributing funds by subsidising employers who gave work to unemployed returned soldiers. Any person who gave these men work could take a receipt for the pay he had given them and claim half the wages paid from the association. The five men before the Court had signed receipts for each other, and had then endeavoured to realise on them by taking them to the secretary of the association. They had been successful in obtaining only 17s Gd, however. ‘Three of the men are seamen,” continued Mr. I-lammond. “They have not been to sea for some time, and all have previous convictions except

Asked if they wished to make any explanation the men had nothing to say, except Bowler, who said that he had make a frank explanation to the police and had made only one attempt to obtain money from the association.

Mr. Hammond mentioned that Bowler had quite a long list. “You are fortunate that you are not facing a much more serious charge that would result in a long term of imprisonment,” commented Mr. W. R. McKean, S.M. “It is a contemptible business and merits severe punishment.”