"PREYED ON HIS MIND."

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 201, 26 August 1930, Page 5

"PREYED ON HIS MIND."

MAN ASKS FOR SENTENCE.

"WANTED TO GET IT OVER."

PROBATION TERM GRANTED.

"It preyed on his mind. He said he had no hope and that it was a case of his word against another's," said Mr. Smyth, in the Police Court yesterday, in explaining why Herbert Albert Edward Scott, aged 32, a tablet-porter, called at the Police Station and asked that he be tried on a charge of stealing a handsaw and 14/ in money, the property of the New Zealand Government Railwaye, and on three charges of obtaining sums totalling £3 by false pretences. Scott had been remanded on bail.

"He wished to get it over, he said," remarked Detective Nalder to Mr. F. K. Hunt, S.M., "and said that if he were left out on bail he would go away on the Aorangi." Mr. Nalder then described how accused called at the Police Station and asked that he be tried that day.

"Against my advice he is pleading guilty to all charges," said Mr. Smyth. "I think he was guilty of the theft of the saw, but he sticks to his story regarding the false pretences charge and I do not think-he is guilty." Mr. Smyth said his client had taken the step of going to the Police Station without his

knowledge.

Accused was visibly affected while counsel was pleading for him.

"He was a tablet-porter in the employment of the New Zealand Government Railways," said Mr. Smyth, "and was then moved to take over sole charge at Patumahoe." Counsel submitted that the Railway Department was to blame for putting a man not used to the keeping of books in such a responsible position. The false pretences charges arose out of accused receiving money for the unloading of trucks at the station. Aceueed said, and stuck to his story, that two carriers at Patumahoe approached him and offered him 1/ a ton to unload manure from trucks if they were not at the station to do so themselves. Certainly the instructions from the Railway Department were that no unloading charges were to be made, but it was in the interests of the carriers if they could get the manure removed to the goods shed instead of its being left in the open.

Mr. Smyth mado a plea for leniency, saying that accused was a married man with three children.

"I think the ends of justice will be niet," said the magistrate; "if I place him on probation for sis months and order him to make complete restitution."