Sheffield Daily Telegraph — Tuesday 28 August 1883

The Miners’ Permanent Relief Fund.
Serious Allegations Against the Denaby Agent.

Yesterday at the Rotherham West Riding Police Court, before Mr. G. W. Chambers (in the chair) and other magistrates, Robert Adams, collier, Denaby Main, answered three summonses for falsifying the books and embezzling money of the Miners’ Permanent Relief Fund.

Mr. Clegg, of Barnsley, appeared for the prosecution, and Mr. Parker Rhodes was for the defendant. Mr. Clegg said the defendant was the agent of the Denaby Main branch of the West Riding of Yorkshire Miners’ Permanent Relief Fund, the object of which was to provide support for any of the members who might be injured. It was the defendant’s duty to receive the contributions of the members and to pay money in respect of accidents. The society had been investigated, and had been found not to have been kept in proper order, and there were charges of embezzlement.

Numerous errors of what he should call defalcations had been found, and three charges had been laid. He proceeded to go on with the statement, showing under section 9 of the Friendly Societies Act, 1875, any person who obtains possession by false representation of any moneys or property of a society shall be liable on summary conviction to a penalty not exceeding £20 and costs, and to an order to deliver up the property or to repay such moneys, and in default to be imprisoned with or without hard labour for any term not exceeding three months. The society was a properly registered one.

The defendant was entered in his cash book a payment of 10s. to William Henry Wright, who was a member of the Denaby Main branch. He was injured on the 4th April, and was attended to. He afterwards left the place, and was unable to do anything. Wright resumed work on April 11 and the defendant paid him 6s. In the cash book he kept as between himself and the society he had entered that he had paid to Wright on April 14 10s., and this entry was confirmed in the society’s books. Another case was that of a man named Morgan, a workman at the Denaby Main Colliery, who was entered in the book as having received 5s. for eight days being off work. Morgan, or his mother, who had received money for him, would be called to prove that they had only received 5s., the defendant having retained 5s.

Another case was that of a man named Jetter, who had left work on the 23rd May owing to an accident, and went to work again on the 30th. That entitled him to the sum of 6s., but he was entered in the defendant’s book as having received 5s., and it was also entered that the amount had been 30s. The defendant was also charged with having misappropriated money on other occasions.

On the completion of Mr. Clegg’s opening statement the case was, on the application of Mr. Rhodes, allowed to stand over, and eventually the Bench decided to adjourn it for a week.