ORANGES IN BAGS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 216, 12 September 1935, Page 8

ORANGES IN BAGS.

WATERSIDE WORKERS.

THEFT CHARGES ADJOURNED

WARNING BY MAGISTRATE

Appearing voluntarily in the Police Court this morning, three waterside workers, John Thomas Coyle, aged 58, Frederick Robinson, aged 50, and John Patrick McCarthy, aged 42, were charged with stealing oranges valued at 1/9, the property of the Union Steam Ship Company,

■Mr. J. J. Sullivan appeared for the three accused and said the circumstance* were most unusual. He asked that the accused should not be called upon to plead until the facts had been disclosed by the police.

Senior Detective Hall said comnlaint was made to the Queen's Wharf polica at 10 a.m. yesterday that 20 cases of oranges which were being discharged from the steamer Sheaf Holme had been broken open and the contents removed As a result, Detective Mahood kept watch and caught the three men leaving the ship with the oranges in their bags! "These men were perfectly hones; about the matter and admitted picking the oranges up from the deck of the steamer," said .Mr. Hall. "Although the amounts may appear to be small, it is in the aggregate fairly large, as fruit la* also been stolen from other ships here recently."

-Mr. Hall said Coyle was a married man with six children and McCarthy had eight children. Robinson also had a. family.

Mr. Sullivan said the three men took the oranges quite openly. They saw them lying on the deck. Some" were squashed and they thougflt they were waste fruit. The cases of fruit were not broken by any waterside worker in Auckland. The pillage evidently occurred somewhere else. Happily, as the magistrate was aware, there had'been few cases of cargo pillaging in Auckland recently.

Mr. Hunt (to the three men): Now if I convict you you will all lose your jobs on the wharf. I don't want to do that as you all have families. I will adjourn these charges for three months Now go away, all of you.

"I know what to do with the next man who comes up here," the magistrate added. "This is a warning to those who may think of taking goods from ships."