THREE MONTHS’ “HARD”

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 735, 7 August 1929, Page 1

THREE MONTHS’ “HARD”

“FOOLISH AND DELIBERATE,” SAYS JUDGE VALUELESS CHEQUES For leaving a trail of valueless cheques behind him in Auckand and Whangarei, Frederick Alexander Brydon will have to serve a term of three months’ hard labour, to be followed by two years’ probation. This sentence was passed by Mr. Justice Herdman in the Supreme Court today on Brydon for three offences of false pretences. On behalf of the prisoner, Mr. Noble described him as an extremely ignorant man, who was scarcely able to write his own name.

His Honour: He knows how to sign cheques. Counsel added that Brydon did not seem to appreciate that people had accepted the cheques in good faith, and that it was a swindle to issue them, rt seemed very dangerous for cheques to be put in the hands of a man of this type, counsel concluded. His Honour considered that while Brydon had been very foolish he had also been very deliberate. The offences did not involve the isolated case of issuing one cheque; the cheques had been scattered over the district. Apart from that, accused had been warned he would get into trouble, but he had persisted, and in addition had told a story in the wit-ness-box that his Honour considered was not true.

In sentencing Brydon to three months’ hard labour on the first count, he admitted him to two years’ probation on the second and third charges on condition that restitution was made within 12 months to the people victimised, together with the costs of the prosecution.