TWO MEN SENT TO GAOL.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 261, 3 November 1928, Page 12

TWO MEN SENT TO GAOL.

SEQUEL TO MT. EDEN ROBBERY

PLEA FOR LENIENCY FAILS.

"I take a serious view of this offence," said Mr. Justice Smith, in sentencing Roy Edward Trask (22) (Mr. F. W. Schramm) and Norman Travers (22), to two years' imprisonment, to be followed by reformative detention for not less than two years, on a charge of robbery with violence. The offence took place at Mount Eden on the night of September 28.

Trask had come from Australia to look after his father, who was addicted to drink, said Mr. Schramm, and drifted into crime. The result was that both he and his father had come before the Court in Auckland in connection with the conversion of motor care. At present the prisoner was serving a sentence of three months in gaol. Counsel asked that Trask should be dealt with under the Probation Act. The robbery, he submitted, wag not as serious as at first appeared. There was no great violence, the prisoner had been out of work for a considerable time, was short of money and committed the offence with the idea of getting some money to help him along. Mr. V. R. Meredith, Grown Prosecutor, said it was an offence which could not be treated lightly. There was a deliberate arrangement to. hold up a tradesman, Mr. George Pearce, on his return home on a Friday night, when he had his takings with him. The attack on him and his wife was a serious matter. Although no firearm was actually used, there was intimidation by the pretence to use one. The two people held up were elderly, and it was an act of violence to force a man off the running board of a car when it was travelling with considerable speed. The whole of the circumstances indicated that the men were prepared to use any violence to achieve their ends. Travers, from the dock, said that he had been out of work for about six months and he did not intend any harm. His Honor, in imposing sentence, said that both the prisoners had disgraced their manhood by attacking two elderly people. Any attempt of this sort eoufd not be dealt with in a lenient manner. Both men must be taught a lesson and there must be a deterrent to others who might be inclined to do the same act.