Friend repaid debt with forged money
Police have dropped charges after accepting that a Redwood man may not have known that three $100 notes he used at Christchurch shops were forgeries.
The prosecution against 35-year-old Aaron Lawrence Maurice was meant to go ahead as a judge-alone trial in the Christchurch District Court today but police reviewed the file and decided they were unlikely to win.
The prosecutor said there was “no reasonable prospect of conviction” because of the difficulty of proving that Maurice realised the notes were forgeries.
Defence counsel Richard Peters said Maurice, a builder, had since paid all the money back to the businesses where he used the three banknotes.
The notes appeared to be photocopies, which did not have the clear windows that appear on genuine New Zealand banknotes.
Police laid three charges against Maurice in June, alleging offences in April and May. The charges alleged that he used $100 notes he knew to be forged, to obtain property.
He had gone into a bakery and a café, and a shop, to buy small items and received a large amount of money in change when he used the forged banknotes.
He pleaded not guilty and the case was set for a half-day trial before Judge Alistair Garland.
When the day began, one charge had to be dropped by the police because staff from the shop involved were not able to attend the hearing.
The other two charges were delayed for a few hours, and then dropped by the police.
Judge Garland told Maurice: “The police think it is a reasonable possibility that you may not have known that the $100 notes were forged and accordingly they have taken the proper approach of offering no evidence against you, and both charges are dismissed.”
Outside the court, Maurice said he had not known the notes were copies.
He had loaned a friend $360 and she had eventually paid him back in cash, including the three forged $100 notes.
She was not a friend of his any longer, and he was not sure whether she had been spoken to by the police.
He said he was relieved it was over. “I can now get on with my life,” he said.
Category: Focus
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