Teen used OAP's postal order to pay debts

[TrueBlueTerrier]

http://www.peterleemail.co.uk/news/Teen ... 6567728.jp" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

A DISHONEST teen spotted a £75 postal order that a pensioner had dropped on a supermarket floor and cashed it in, a court heard.
Wayne Iverson went into Costcutters, in Duke Street, Hartlepool, and saw the cash voucher lying on the floor in one of the aisles.

It had moments earlier been accidentally dropped by a 66-year-old woman who had gone into the store to do some shopping.

But instead of handing in the postal order and having it returned to its rightful owner, 18-year-old Iverson went to the post office and cashed it himself.

He then used the cash to pay his council tax.

Prosecuting, Joanne Hesse said: "A 66-year-old woman accidentally dropped a £75 postal order when she was in Costcutters.

"The defendant entered the store, saw the postal order and later cashed it in the post office.

"The incident was recorded on CCTV and the defendant was subsequently arrested."

She added: "He was interviewed and fully admitted the offence. He said he spent the money on his council tax bill.

"He expressed sorrow for his actions during the interview."

Iverson, of Dent Street, Hartlepool, pleading guilty to stealing the postal order on September 20.

Mitigating, Neil Taylor said: "This is a fairly straight forward offence. Here we have a young man who has debts owing and comes across a postal order.

"He has two choices; one is to hand it in to somebody, and the other is do nothing, and cash it in knowing it doesn't belong to him.

"Because of his financial situation he chooses the latter and cashes it in."

Chairman of the bench Sandra Mason sentenced Iverson to a six-month conditional discharge and ordered him to pay £75 compensation.

[Lounge Lizard]

"Chairman of the bench Sandra Mason sentenced Iverson to a six-month conditional discharge" which must be a bit like having a light slap on the wrist and being told not to do it again.

[fishtank]

What are neds coming to these days?...paying your council tax with the money.
In my day it would have gone on drink and drugs.

[POSTMAN]

I don't get this,why was he nicked,i mean if i dropped a tenner and you found it you wouldn't get nicked if you spent it.
What is the difference with a postal order? If it had been signed or made out to someone else he wouldn't of been able to cash it anyway.
Have i missed something.

PS:I haven't seen one for years so i'm a bit behind.

[fishtank]

I don't get this,why was he nicked,i mean if i dropped a tenner and you found it you wouldn't get nicked if you spent it.
What is the difference with a postal order? If it had been signed or made out to someone else he wouldn't of been able to cash it anyway.
Have i missed something.

...because if you find a tenner you are supposed to hand it in to the cops..the only reason you won't get nicked is because it would be impossible to prove the tenner wasn't yours.
In the case of a postal order she would have the receipt so....he's screwed.

[Lounge Lizard]

I don't get this,why was he nicked,i mean if i dropped a tenner and you found it you wouldn't get nicked if you spent it.
What is the difference with a postal order? If it had been signed or made out to someone else he wouldn't of been able to cash it anyway.
Have i missed something.

...because if you find a tenner you are supposed to hand it in to the cops..the only reason you won't get nicked is because it would be impossible to prove the tenner wasn't yours.
In the case of a postal order she would have the receipt so....he's screwed.

My understanding is that banknotes are to be handed in, perhaps because serial numbers makes them identifyable, but coins need not be.
As for theft of a Postal order it brings to mind The Winslow Boy, an English play from 1946 by Terence Rattigan based on an actual incident in the Edwardian era, which took place at the Royal Naval College, Osborne.
The play's London debut was in 1946, and it featured Emlyn Williams, Mona Washbourne, Angela Baddeley, Kathleen Harrison, Frank Cellier, Jack Watling and Clive Morton. It was under the direction of Glen Byam Shaw.
The play's Broadway debut was in 1947, and it featured Frank Allenby as Sir Robert, Alan Webb as Arthur Winslow, and Valerie White as Catherine Winslow.
The play was later made into a famous 1948 film (The Winslow Boy (1948 film)) directed by Anthony Asquith, starring Robert Donat as Sir Robert Morton KC, Sir Cedric Hardwicke as Arthur Winslow, and Margaret Leighton as Catherine Winslow. Another film version was made in 1999 (The Winslow Boy (1999 film)), directed by David Mamet, and starring Nigel Hawthorne and Jeremy Northam as Arthur Winslow and Morton respectively, and Rebecca Pidgeon as Catherine. The play has also been adapted for television, including a 1990 version starring Gordon Jackson as Arthur Winslow, Ian Richardson as Morton and Emma Thompson as Catherine.
Set against the strict codes of conduct and manners of the age, The Winslow Boy is based on a father's fight to clear his son's name after the boy is expelled from Osborne Naval College for stealing a five-shilling postal order. To clear the boy's name was imperative for the family's honour; had they not done so, they would have been shunned by their peers and society. The boy's life would have been wrecked by the stain on his character.
The play was inspired by an actual event, which set a legal precedent: the case of Stonyhurst College alumnus George Archer-Shee, a cadet at Osborne in 1908, who was accused of stealing a postal order from a fellow cadet. His elder brother Major Martin Archer-Shee, was convinced of his innocence, and persuaded his father (also called Martin) to engage lawyers. The most respected barrister of the day, Sir Edward Carson was also persuaded of his innocence, and insisted on the case coming to court. On the fourth day of the trial, the Solicitor General accepted that Archer-Shee was innocent, and ultimately the family was paid compensation. George Archer-Shee died in the First World War and his name is inscribed on the war memorial in the village of Woodchester in Gloucestershire where his parents lived, as well as on the memorial plaque outside the Catholic St Mary on the Quay church in Bristol city centre, where he had been an altar boy.
Ronnie Winslow, a thirteen-year-old cadet at the Royal Naval College, is accused of the theft of a five-shilling postal order. An internal enquiry, conducted without notice to his family and without benefit of representation, finds him guilty, and his father, Arthur Winslow, is "requested to withdraw" his son from the college (the formula of the day for expulsion). Winslow believes Ronnie's claim of innocence and, with the help of his suffragette daughter Catherine and his friend and family solicitor Desmond Curry, launches a concerted effort to clear Ronnie's name. This is no small matter, as under British law, Admiralty decisions are official acts of the government, which cannot be sued without its consent—traditionally expressed by the Attorney General responding to a petition of right with the formula "Let right be done".
The Winslows succeed in engaging the most highly sought after barrister in England at the time, Sir Robert Morton, known also to be a shrewd opposition Member of Parliament. Catherine had expected Sir Robert to decline the case, or at best to treat it as a political football; instead, he is coolly matter-of-fact about having been persuaded of Ronnie's innocence by his responses to questioning (in fact, a form of cross-examination, to see how young Ronnie would hold up in court) in the presence of his family, and is shown mustering his political forces in the House of Commons on the Winslows' behalf with little concern for the cost to his faction. Catherine remains unconvinced of Sir Robert's sincerity, perhaps not least because of his record of opposition to the cause of women's suffrage, but also due to his dispassionate manner in the midst of the Winslow family's financial sacrifices.
The government is strongly disinclined to allow the case to proceed, claiming that it is a distraction from pressing Admiralty business; but in the face of public sympathy garnered through Winslow and Catherine's efforts, and of Sir Robert's impassioned speech on the verge of defeat in the Commons, the government yields, and the case is allowed to come to court. At trial, Sir Robert (working together with Desmond Curry and his firm) is able to discredit much of the supposed evidence. The Admiralty, certainly embarrassed and presumably no longer confident of Ronnie's guilt, abruptly withdraws all charges against him, proclaiming him entirely innocent.
Although the family has won the case at law and lifted the cloud over Ronnie, it has taken its toll on the rest. His father's physical health has deteriorated under the strain, as to some degree has the happiness of the Winslows' home. The costs of the suit and the publicity campaign have eaten up his older brother Dickie's Oxford tuition, and hence his chance at a career in the Civil Service, as well as Catherine's marriage settlement. Her fiancé John Watherstone has broken off the engagement in the face of opposition from his father (an Army Colonel), forcing her to consider a sincere and well-intentioned offer of marriage from Desmond, whom she does not love. Sir Robert has also declined appointment as Lord Chief Justice, rather than drop the case. However, the play ends with a suggestion that romance may yet blossom between Sir Robert and Catherine, who acknowledges that she has misjudged him all along.
In the play, Rattigan quotes from actual parliamentary debates and court transcripts, but makes major changes to the characters and the timing of events, moving them closer to the start of World War I. He also introduces several fictional characters: a sister, Catherine Winslow, a suffragette and, as we learn in the final lines of the play, a potential future politician; her erstwhile fiancé, John Watherstone; and Desmond Curry, a solicitor who eventually proposes to Catherine. According to the 1999 film's website, in reality, Archer-Shee did have a sister, though Rattigan altered the character.
Martin Archer-Shee junior was a very different character from the failed university student, Dickie Winslow, of the play. He was a Conservative Member of Parliament from 1910, and in his mid-thirties at the time of the case.
Arthur Winslow was also made less prosperous than his factual counterpart.
Whilst the play gives only indirect reference to the court case and the parliamentary debates, the 1948 film introduces scenes from these events that are not in the play.

[Stormproof]

only joking LL

[POSTMAN]

Teach me to ask!

[Lounge Lizard]

I don't get this,why was he nicked,i mean if i dropped a tenner and you found it you wouldn't get nicked if you spent it.
What is the difference with a postal order? If it had been signed or made out to someone else he wouldn't of been able to cash it anyway.
Have i missed something.

But it's not far from that to a postie saying that a £20 note he has must have fallen out of a card onto the Delivery Office floor.