ALLEGED FALSE PRETENCES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 24 November 1943, Page 2

ALLEGED FALSE PRETENCES

COMPANY DIRECTOR CHARGED PROSECUTION AT DUNEDIN (By Telegraph—Press Association.) DUNEDIN, November 23. The hearing of a number of charges of false pretences and publishing false balance-sheets against Stanley Reginald Burns, company director, formerly of Dunedin, is proceeding in the Supreme Court, before Mr Justice Kennedy and a special jury of 12. The Crown prosecutor, Mr F. B. Adams, appears for the Crown, and accused is represented by Mr C. S. Thomas, Christchurch, and Mr G. V. Murdoch. Opening the case for the Crown, Mr Adams said of the 12 charges, six lelated to false pretences and the _ other six to the making and circulating of false balance-sheets of S. R. Burns and Co. The company was incorporated in 1934. The business of the concern was the promoting and financing of companies, accused being chairman of directors and managing director. The company’s balance-sheet maintained an “air of prosperity” with one partial exception. The 1939 balance-sheet disclosed that the paid-up capital of the company stood at £37,461, the total amount at stake on the part of the shareholders being £38,827. The real assets were shown to be £42,024. “We have two letters written by accused to one Facer of Christchurch, the first dated September 26, 1939, and the other October 30, 1939,” Mr Adams said. The letters had been written two and three months after the company’s balance-sheet had been approved by the directors, and yet the letters disclosed it was false to the extent of almost £33,000.

Mr Adams reviewed Burns’s transactions in detail, and said they constituted a deliberate, callous, and brutal fraud. These transactions involved what counsel described as masked and disguised ramifications.