TROUBLE OVER COAT.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 258, 1 November 1933, Page 9

TROUBLE OVER COAT.

DRUNKEN TRIMMER'S ACTION. FIXED OX THEFT CHARGE. 'He must have been drunk to trv' to sell a shopkeeper his own coat," "said Mr. F. K. Hunt, S.M., in the Police Court this morning, when he fined a trimmer, John Terry, aged 30, £2 or 14 days' imprisonment for theft of a sports coat valued at £1 7/6. Terry pleaded not guilty. A shop assistant said Terry called at the shop at 9 a.m. yesterday and wanted a pair of trousers and two shirts on credit. The request was refused. Accused returned again and on each of theso occasions he was wearing the sports coat which witness later found had been stolen from the front of the shop. Terry returned a third time with the coat over his arm. He wanted witness to buy the coat for 5/. Witness then kept accused in the shop while he called a constable. Terry, said the assistant, was under the influence of liquor. Constable Campbell, who arrested Terry, said Terry at first explained that he got the coat from a man in a hotel, arid later he said he got it from a man in the street. Accused was a trimmer and a member of the crew of the s.s. Port Nicholson, which sailed for Gisbornc last night.' The ship was due to sail finally from Wellington within the next two weeks. At the time of his arrest, Terry, while under the influence of liquor, was not bad enough to lock up for drunkenness. In fining Terry £2, the magistrate ordered him to be returned to his ship when the fine could be collected. "He was no doubt drunk at the time, and I don't want to send him to prison," added the magistrate.