BUSHMAN DECEIVED

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 890, 6 February 1930, Page 16

BUSHMAN DECEIVED

AGENT GUILTY OF THEFT OF PREMIUMS

AN INSURANCE VENTURE How a half-caste Maori bushman was deluded into the belief that he was insured for three years by an insurance agent who misappropriated his premiums was revealed to Mr. Justice Herdman and a jury in the Supreme Court yesterday, when Thomas Leonard AVilliams was convicted of failing to account for £27 15s in premiums to the Temperance and General Insurance Company. Mr. Meredith, Crown prosecutor, conducted the Crown case, and Mr. H. F. Guy represented the accused. •John Baker, a bushman, described bow, in 1925, he agreed to take out a £SOO policy and paid the first premium of £9 5s to AVilliams, who described himself as travelling representative for the T. and G. Company. He paid two more premiums, but did not receive his policy, accused explaining it was lost when his (Williams’s’) house was destroyed by fire. One of the last receipts given him by Williams was on a Colonial Mutual form, Williams explaining that the T. and G. Company had amalgamated with this firm. The policy was eventually issued to him in June, 1929, by the Colonial Mutual Company, but it was for £2OO instead of £SOO. AA’iHiams, in a statement to the police, said in 1926 he was holding Baker's first premium when he sought permission of the T. and G. Company at Whangarei to act as its agent, but received no answer. In 1928 he went into business with another agent, doing business for the Colonial Mutual Life Company, and therefore issued Baker a policy in this company. He was under the impression he had given Baker two receipts for one premium. He was holding in trust £lB 10s in premiums for Baker. The jury returned a verdict of guilty on three counts and not guilty on tbe fourth.