SAILOR'S ARREST.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 234, 2 October 1937, Page 10

SAILOR'S ARREST.

FOUND IN MOTOR CAR. BENCH ADJOURNS CASE. Arrested at two o'clock this morning on a charge of unlawfully converting to his own use a motor car valued at £98, a seaman from H.M.S. Leander, Douglas Derbyshire, aged. 28, later appeared before justices in the Police Court. He pleaded guilty to the charge. Sub-Inspector Fox said the owner of the car, on leading a restaurant in Victoria Street West at two o'clock this morning, saw that his vehicle had been moved a short distance along the street. One wheel was on the footpath. Accused was found sitting at the steering wheel and trying to start the car. Constable Egan then came along and found that although Derbyshire was affected, bv liquor, he was not in a state of intoxication. "The reasonable assumption was that the sailor attempted n drive the car away," said Mr. Fox. "Probably the liquor he had taken had something to do with the matter."

An officer of the cruiser Leander told the Bench that Derbyshii ? had been in the Navy since February, 1928, and that his conduct had been excellent throughout the whole of his service. "He is one of my best workers," said the lieutenant. "I think he must have irot a little excited after taking sonic liquor and that he was not quite responsible for what happened."

Derbyshire was not com ielecT, the two justices stating that they woukl adjourn his case for six months". If his behaviour was good in the meantime no more would be hard of tho matter.