PILLAGED BUTTER.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 224, 21 September 1929, Page 18

PILLAGED BUTTER.

GUILTY OF RECEIVING. WATERSIDER FINED £5. During loading operations on the Hororata on Thursday, when many thousand cases of New Zealand butter were, being placed on board for the Home market, a case was pillaged. When the men working on the ship knocked off in the evening, Detective Sergeant McHugh arrested Gordon Bishop (31), a watersider on a "charge of stealing 71b of butter, valued at 10/0, the property of the New Zealand Shipping Company. He was alternatively charged with receiving the. butter. Bishop, for whom Mr. Duthie appeared, admitted the charge of receiving. The theft charge was then withdrawn. Chief-Detective Hammond said Bishop received 71b out of the box of butter pillaged during the afternoon. Nothing was previously known against him. Mr. Duthie said there was no doubt a box had been pillaged, but Bishop had been given some of the butter, and did not know it had been stolen. Mr. F. K. Hunt:' That's nonsense. Where did he think it came from, then ? Counsel said that Bishop was a married man with a family. He had been employed on the wharves for the past nine years. He had never been in trouble previously, and had always borne an unblemished character. Counsel asked that under the circumstances a light fine would meet the case. "It is usual to give imprisonment in such cases, but we have not had any before the Court lately," said the magistrate in imposing a fine of £5 and costs, in default/ one month's imprisonment.;' 1