LIVING BY CRIME.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 55, Issue 209, 17 June 1935, Page 3

LIVING BY CRIME.

MAN'S CONFESSION TO POLICEMany mysterious, shop-breakings in various parts of London which had puzzled the police during the past five or six. years were explained at the Old Bailey recently when John Bartlett, aged 38, motor-driver, pleaded guilty to charges of shop-breaking, receiving stolen property, and possessing housebreaking implements by night. He asked that 30 outstanding cases should be taken into consideration. According to Mr J. B. Montague, prosecuting, Bartlett was arrested by three plain-clothes police officers in the vicinity of Brompton-arcade, S.W. and he handed them a brown-paper parcel containing a piece of iron piping. While his fingerprints were being taken Bartlett made a long statement, in which he detailed places into which he had broken. "During the last five or six years I have lived by stealing from shops at night," part of the statement ran. "I have done nearly all this by climbing through fanlights oyer doors." De-tective-sergeant Norman revealed that Bartlett had one previous conviction at Leeds in 1929, when he was sentenced to six months' imprisonment in the second division for stealing from a shop. Recorder Mr Holman Gregory, K.C.: Apparently since 1929 he has been living by crime?—.Since 1927. Referring to the statement the Recorder remarked that he gathered that a good deal of it was boasting on Bartlett's part. "I would like to say," Sergeant Norman replied, "that in a lot of these outstanding cases there was no evidence against prisoner other than his own statement. It is a fact that the offences were committed." The Recorder remarked that bearing in mind that few of the offences would have been used against Bartlett unless he himself had disclosed them he would not send him to penal servitude. He would be sentenced to 20 months' hard labour.