Doc: 24675 Source: Northern News

Spca Fine for real meanness of spirit’

A 74-year-old Kaitaia man who admitted stealing $17,629 from the SPCA in
Kaitaia was fined $1,500 (of which $1,000 is to be paid to the society) and
ordered to pay costs of $130, after Judge Duncan Harvey had made his views
clear in the Kaitaia District Court last week.
Judge Harvey told Barry Robert Callaghan that he was guilty of a gross breach of
trust, and that while full reparation had been made he had done enormous harm
to the society in Kaitaia.
“They cannot reconcile their books so they can’t apply for the grants the
desperately need,” he said.
“They are going to struggle for some time, and all that can be laid at your door.”
The offending, he said, had revealed a “real meanness of spirit.”
Counsel Junior Witehira submitted that much of Callaghan’s offending had been
designed to cover his addiction to gambling on poker machines. The defendant
was very apologetic, appreciating the extreme damage he had done to the
society and accepting that he was responsible for the predicament it found itself
in.
This was his first offence, however, and at 74 years of age he needed to put it
behind him. He had done that with the support of his family.
“If he can do more to rectify the situation he will do so,” Mr Witehira said, adding
that the pre-sentence report detailed a number of health faced by Callaghan,
which would count against a sentence of community work.
The court heard at an earlier appearance that Callaghan’s systematic theft of
money was discovered only after he fell ill and a new vice-chairperson was
elected. Prior to that he had served the branch as treasurer for some eight years.
Between April 2004 and August last year he had cashed some 24 committee
cheques at ASB Bank in Kaitaia. Eighteen of the cheques, with a total value of
$14,400, had been recorded on the butts as being paid to Pak ‘n Save.
One of six further cheques, also made out for cash and presented at ASB, was
recorded as being paid to the defendant, while three were shown as being paid
to staff members, one to the second-hand shop run in conjunction with the SPCA
and one to Kaitaia Vet Services.
Careful examination of the defendant’s bookwork following the appointment of a
new vice-chairperson brought large “negative difficulties” to light in terms of the
sums supposedly receipted into the Pak `n Save account. Callaghan had written
what he had paid to the supermarket in the monthly cash book, sometimes
recording one or two payments of $800 per month, but only one of those
amounts could be identified by Pak n` Save’s records.
That trend, police prosecutor Sergeant Mathew Tailby said, had been repeated
on a monthly basis until the defendant resigned.
Callaghan had admitted that 18 of the cheques had been made out in his hand-
writing, but while he did not flatly deny the allegations he insisted that he could
not remember doing “anything like that.” He also told police that he would ask
one of the other signatories to sign a “few extra” bank cheques at committee
meetings to pay bills that might come in during the month.