References
ILLEGAL COAL: N.C.B. OFFICIAL AND FIRM FINED
An Edinburgh deputy divisional welfare officer of the National Coal Board was fined £10 at Edinburgh Sheriff Court to-day for accepting four tons of coal to which he was not entitled. The firm which supplied the coal was fined £50. The welfare officer, Robert James Prince, Birgadale Crieff. 12 Corstorphine Road. pleaded guilty, but an agent said the coal had been delivered in accused's absence, and he had not entered into any arrangement to receive it. The firm, Thomas Greer & Sons, 123 Main Street, Holytown, Lanarkshire, admitted the charge, and, said the agent accepted full responsibility for the illegal delivery of the coal. Mr J. Houston, Depute Procurator-Fiscal. said that an assistant house coal officer in Edinburgh, motoring in Corstorphine Road on September 9. saw a coal lorry parked outside Prince's house. Returning later, he saw that the lorry was still there, but its load had gone. Suspecting that there had been an illegal delivery, he reported the matter to the fuel overseer in Edinburgh.
It was found that an Edinburgh coal merchant was authorized to supply coal to the house. Prince, when interviewed at the office of the Ministry of Fuel and Power, admitted that he had got four tons from the Holytown firm. Accused was not entitled to any special supplies. Mr Houston said the firm owned a small mine at Whitburn. For both Prince and the firm it was stated that the offence had been committed at a time when there was no acute shortage of coal as we knew it to-day. The firm had a surplus of coal, and it could not be said that its customers had been deprived. Stating that Prince had made no arrangements to have the teal delivered, the agent said that all accused could connect with its arrival was a remark he made when asked by the firm how he was off for coal. He had replied that, like everybody else, he found it difficult. His offence was that he did not repudiate the delivery once it had been made.
Edinburgh Evening News, 13th February 1951
