MENACE TO COMMUNITY

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 171, 21 July 1928, Page 12

MENACE TO COMMUNITY

GANG OF UNDESIRABLES.

LIVING TOGETHER IN HOUSE.

FOUR SENT TO GAOL.

As the result of the police raiding a house in Goods Lane, City, yesterday, three women and two men appeared at the Police Court this morning.

.Mary Neary, alias Clark (58), Gertrude Dorothy Taylor (25), and Margaret Speakman (29), the three women, each pleaded guilty when charged with being idle and disorderly persons who habitually consorted with reputed thieves and prostitutes. Norman Clark (:>ti) admitted that he was an idle and disorderly person with insufficient means of support, while the other man charged, James Cummins (titi), denied that he was an idle and disorderly person who was found in the company of reputed thieves, or persons who could not give a good account of their lawful means of support. Sub-Inspector McCarthy said that the three women and the two men had been living together in a in Goods Lane. "This gang did a lot of drinking, and they are more or less a menace to the community," said Mr. McCarthy. "The woman Speakman, who recently arrived from Wellington, is well known here, and she is not healthy. The other women are also known, but have not been before the Court for some time. The man Clark rented the house, and it is he who was mainly responsible for the women being there. Cummins had been living in the same house for a long while with one of the women." Cummins told the magistrate that he did not know the women were undesirables. He was in receipt of the old age pensic.n, and often did a little work. Clark stated that it was out of good nature that he provided a house for the others to live in. "I think there is more ' than good nature in it," remarked Mr. W. R. McKean, S.M. Sub-Inspector McCarthy: Yes, sir, it is fairly obvious the way he has been living. Cummins was given another chance, the charg" against him being dismissed. Clark was sentenced to two months' imprisonment, Neary and Taylor, two months' imprisonment each, while Speakman was sent to gaol for three months. The magistrate ordered that she should receive medical attention at the gaol.