CONVERSION OF CARS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 230, 29 September 1933, Page 6

CONVERSION OF CARS.

The serious injuries sustained by an , Auckland constable in trying to arrest a > man in a moving motor car have led to a • heightening of the demand that heavier penalties shall be imposed for the offence of conversion. The president of the South Island Motor Union has gone so far as to say he would take the law into his own i hands if-he found a man interfering with ; his car, which shows how much feeling has I i been roused by this kind of offence against property. Conversion is not theft in the ordinary sense of the word, : and is therefore treated less seriously than theft. In sheep stealing, ~ which it is stated has been "wiped out" by heavy penalties—a statement with which runholdcrs might disagree—the thief removes the goods permanently, but in most of the cases in which ears are taken away, they are used for a little while and abandoned. Nevertheless, the offence is a serious one, for the owner suffers loss and he who takes the car may be incompetent or reckless or both, a danger on the public highway. In 1931, 407 charges of converting vehicles were brought before Magistrate's Courts, and there must have been many other conversions in which the offenders were never found. It is stated that Departmental objections stand in the way of the imposition of heavier penalties, . The Department wishes to avoid the expense of Supreme Court proceedings, it fears that juries would, be unwilling to convict, and it thinks that "young offenders" might be punished too severely. None of these objections is really valid. Heavier penalties could be prescribed in the jurisdic- ! tion of the Lower Court, and solicitude for ' the future of "young offenders" should be influenced by consideration for the victims of their folly. The idea that conversion is 1 often a youthful escapade has been given too s much weight in the past. '