KLEPTOMANIA?

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 140, 15 June 1936, Page 9

KLEPTOMANIA?

"A DIFFICULT CASE." THREE YEARS' IMPRISONMENT — I CHRISTCHTTJEtCH SENTENCES. (By Telegraph. —Press Association.) CHRISTCHURCH, this clay. A suggestion that prisoner suffered from a form of kleptomania was made by Mr. Justice Xortlieroft at tlie Supreme Court this morning, when sentencing Harry Thomas Bctts, aged 38 years, for house breaking and theft (four charges), house breaking with intent to commit theft (four charges), and attempted house breaking with intent to commit theft (two, charges). Betts was sentenced to three years' hard labour. "Yours is a very difficult case," said the judge to Betts. "You are before me for sentence on ten separate charges, and have admitted breaking into 24 different houses. You hav.3 a long list. You have had reformative detention for three years and recently fifteen months' hard labour. You had only been released when you set out to commit this series of burglaries. They are not of a dangerous character, but rather an aggravated form of sneak thieving. It seems to be a form of kleptomania, but as society is ordered at present there is no adequate treatment for this condition. You cannot Harry the community in this way. You will be sentenced" to three years' hard labour." Three youths who had committed burglary were each sentenced to three years' detention in a Borstal institute. They were Cecil Hedley Gilchrist, Winston Mearil Yeatman and Leslie William Rasmussen. Two young men, William John Davidson and William Malcolm Leitch, were sentenced for breaking into a shop and theft. Davidson was sentenced to twelve months' imprisonment and Leitch was placed on probation for two years. It was stated that Davidson had been released from a Borstal institute only last December.