SUPREME COURT.

Timaru Herald, Volume XCVIII, 14 May 1925, Page 5

SUPREME COURT.

ALLEGED FRAUD

By Cable —Fri'*s Aesoniatinn —Oop)riglil WELLINGTON, May 13.

The retrial of George Nelson Shore, charged with theft of £3OO, the property of the Eastbourne Borough Council, and alternatively with conspiring with another to defraud the Council of the same amount, was continued in the Supreme Court before Mr Justice Ostler and a jury of twelve. The first hearing of the case was last week, when, after a jirial lasting two days, the jury disagreed. The allegations, which Shore denied, were that he secured bogus monthly tickets for the ferry steamers, and entered into a conspiracy with on 9 Doran, who has since pleaded guilty, to sell them. Doran was the chief witness for the Crown.

In cross-examination, Shore said that he commenced at £4 per week, but when ho left he was getting £6. Mr Macassey, dealing with the banking accounts, said payments into the same often exceeded the whole of Shore’s salary. ' Shore said the payments were mado partly from his salary, partly from petty transactions, and also their payment, by instalments, of £IOO, a loan he had made to a friend. On. December 23rd, when he paid in £94, he had won that money on a double. Pressed to' give the name of the bookmaker, accused and said he could not remember the names of the horses he had won the. money on. Asked how he paid in £421 during 1923, and £245 7s in 1924, accused did not explain. Mr Mazengarb, for accused, said the principal witness for the prosecution was a liar, and a convicted thief. The jury returned, after an absence of an hour and twenty minutes, with a verdict of guilty on the count ot stealing, but they were unable to specify the definite amount. On the second count, of conspiracy with Doran, the jury found prisoner guilty, but added that there was great laxity in the methods of checking tickets. Sentence was deferred until to-morrow.