SENT TO PRISON.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 180, 2 August 1938, Page 10

SENT TO PRISON.

WOMAN SHOPLIFTER.

THEFT AT NEWTON.

FIVE PREVIOUS CONVICTIONS.

Arrested, yesterday afternoon on a shoplifting charge in Karangahape Road, a woman with five previoue convictions for this type of offence wae sent to prison for seven days when she appeared in the Police Court this morning.

Accused was Hilda Bryant, a married woman, aged 46, for whom Mr. Winter appeared. She admitted stealing a child's gown valued at 7/5, belonging to a Newton store.

Sub-Inspector Fox said that at 12.45 p.m. Bryant wae in the store when an assistant saw her pick up the garment and place it under her costume coat and walk towards the elevator. However, on the way to the elevator «he stopped to examine some coats and then, realising that she was being watched, she returned to where she had taken the gown and replaced it. When accosted she admitted the offence, but later, to Constable McKinney, she stated that the article became attached to her shopping bag.

"It was obvious, however, that she intended to steal it," added Mr. Fox. "Thi* woman lives with her husband and a child of 13. Her husband is in • permanent job receiving £5 5/ per week. Unfortunately she hae a record for shoplifting offences. In 1019 she wae admitted tV probation for eix months for theft,,*nd in October of 1927 she was fined £10 on two charges of stealing from the same shop *s she was in yesterday. Then on March 23 last year she wae fined £1 on each of three charges of theft from a shop." . . "Irresistible Impulse."

It must be admitted, said counsel, that accused had a weaknels for offences of this sort and that yesterday she had yielded to an irresistible impulse. The article ehe had taken was of no use to her as her grand-daughter had died only two, weeks ago. Last year when ehe was before the Court a medical certificate was produced showing that Bryant had suffered from brain fever and that ehe was in a critical period of life. She had never been very strong physically. Her husband, a most respectable man, had been ill the same job for Iβ years. If leniency could be extended on this occasion he was prepared to abandon his Job in the city and take her to live in the country away from shops.

"Looking at a record such as this one can only come to the conclusion that she is a thief," said the magistrate. "She is no- first offertder—this has been going on for years. There is too much of this petty thieving from shops. I don't know whether leniency is encouraging it or not. Imprisonment is the only thing ir>i such offences. A short term will be just as effective as a longer one."

Accused waa sentenced to seven days' imprisonment.