A CHANCE TO PAY

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1058, 23 August 1930, Page 16

A CHANCE TO PAY

JUDGE DEFERS SENTENCE ON BANKRUPT JURY’S RECOMMENDATION Press Association NEW PLYMOUTH, Today. Having been convicted on six counts of breaches of the Bankruptcy Act, Bert Thomas appeared before Mr. •Justice Ostler for sentence, but . the case was deferred until Monday. His Honour expressed a desire to give effect to the jury’s recommendation to mercy, he was of the opinion that such a recommendation was intended to be conditional upon the prisoner abandoning his fraudulent conduct. The judge also expressed the opinion That Thomas had command of' money from the sale of his farm, whether it was in his wife’s name or not, and he thought he was able to discharge the debts of two of the creditors. He therefore deferred sentence for a few days to give prisoner an opportunity of thinking the matter over and abandoning his fraudulent conduct. If he did not do so his Honour intimated that he would consider it his duty in the public interest to inflict the heaviest penalty the law permitted him to impose. Among the charges on which Thomas was found guilty was one that he had left New Zealand with the proceeds of the sale of his farm, and that he had not disclosed the whole of his assets to his creditors.