"MIND POISONED."

Auckland Star, Volume LVIII, Issue 108, 10 May 1927, Page 9

"MIND POISONED."

YOUNG BURGLAR SENTENCED.

READING "BLOOD AND "THUNDER."

(By Telegraph.—Own Correspondent.)

WELLINGTON, this day. An appeal from the dock for leniency Was made by William Victor Haelam, aged 20, who appeared for sentence on three charges of breaking and entering and theft. He said he came from the Old Country twelve months ago. He had been employed in a legal office at Home, and he tried to obtain work of a similar nature here, but without success. He then went on a farm and stayed there nearly twelve months. He ultimately arrived in Palmerston North.

"I had no 'cobbers,'" he said, "and I have only been in two places of amusement since my arrival. The way I have had to work I have had a pretty hard time. I had been reading T>lood and thunder' sort of stuff, and got an impulse to do this sort of thing. I gave ! lie police every assistance, and all the stolen property has been recovered."

"The police regard this man ae the makings of a very cunning and dangerous criminal," stated Mr. P. S. K. Macassey, Crown Prosecutor. "When he was arrested he had in his possession a complete kit of housebreaking instruments, and twenty-three detonators. He was convicted of similar offences in England, and he was warned to give up this reading."

Mr. Justice MacGregor observed that prisoner had been granted probation before leaving England for several offences. It was true that he had been reading literature of a criminal type, and his mind seemed to have been poisoned. Probation was out of the question. Haslam will be detained in a Borstal Institution for a period not exceeding three years."