SERIES OF CHARGES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 8 July 1939, Page 11

SERIES OF CHARGES

AGAINST PALMERSTON NORTH AUCTIONEERS. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) PALMERSTON N, This Day. Facing a charge of conspiracy, seven charges of breaches of the Auctioneering Act by rendering a false account of sales, and six charges of failing to account. John Richards, managing director of the Dominion Auctioneering Company, Palmerston North, and Arthur Haines, an employee of the company, were committed to stand trial at the next sitting of the Supreme Court in Palmerston North on July 15 next. Accused pleaded not guilty and wore admitted to bail of £2OO each, with a surety of a like amount. It was stated by the prosecution that in March this year certain fruitgrowers in the Hastings district complained to the police that the firm was advising them that their fruit brought a lower price in the firm’s mart than it actually had done. As a result of those complaints two Hastings fruitgrowers, Messrs H. G. Carr and G. D. Wilson, with Detective H. E. Campin, Hastings, attended the auction mart on March 14, 21, and 28. Wilson and Carr had forwarded fruit to be sold on each of those dates, and during the sale they took notes of the prices their produce brought at auction. When they received the account of the sales on their return to Hastings they found that they were credited with lower prices than it actually had brought.