ROBBED THE BLIND.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 96, 24 April 1928, Page 8

ROBBED THE BLIND.

MAORI'S CONTEMPTIBLE ACT BROKE liOCKERS AT INSTITUTE SIX MONTHS IN GAOL. "I hardly know how to describe the meanness of this man's offence,"' Chier Detective Hammond about Walter Hunter (31), a Maori, who admitted charges of stealing £4 in money, the property of an inmate of the Jubilee institute for the Blind, and a handbag containing £1 5/, belonging to a woman.

Mr. Hammond stated that Hunter visited the Blind Institute last Saturday to see an inmate. While there he played the piano and got into the good graces of the blind inmates., He said that he was a member of the City Mission, and offered to help at a concert which was to be held. He was shown through the institute, and while upstairs he forced open two lockers. From one he extracted £4, but from the other he got nothing. Afterwards he stole a handbag containing 2i5/, belonging to a woman who was waiting in the tramway shed at Grafton Bridge.

"It was a most contemptible theft, and Hunter has a long list of previous convictions," added the chief detective.

Scanning accused's list of convictions, Mr. McKean remarked that Hunter had only recently served twelve months' imprisonment. It was a mean theft, and he would be sentenced to six months in gaol.