FOUR YEARS’ GAOL

Wairarapa Times-Age, 16 March 1942, Page 4

FOUR YEARS’ GAOL

THEFT OF ROAD BOARD FUNDS. DELIBERATE & LONG-CONTINUED CRIME. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) AUCKLAND, This Day. George Lampton Gladding, 63, an accountant, for many years secretary of the Auckland Bowling Centre, who had pleaded guilty to the theft as a servant of over £2678 from the Ostend Road Board in small sums over many years, was sentenced in the Supreme Court by Mr Justice Fair to four years’ imprisonment. Defending counsel said Gladding otherwise had led an exemplary life. The fact that the Road Board was on Waiheke Island and Gladding as secretary in Auckland led to the practice of the chairman and another board member signing blank cheques, which the secretary filled in and signed vouchers. He was so popular among bowlers throughout the Dominion that he was encouraged to live above his means. Though he did not drink, gamble or live extravagantly he lacked the strength of character to reorganise his life and the discovery of his defalcations came almost as a relief. Two business men gave evidence of Cladding’s sterling character. “This is the worst case of its kind that has come before me since I have been on the Supreme Court bench,” said the Judge. “A deliberate and long-continued crime must be punished with the severity it merited and the least sentence was four years’ hard labour.