FOUR YEARS

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIV, Issue 53, 4 March 1943, Page 6

FOUR YEARS

RECEIVING PENALTY

SENTENCE UPON LABOURER

After occupying three-quarters of an hour in .commenting on the seriousness of the offence of receiving property knowing it to have been stolen, and. on the record of the prisoner. Mr. Justice Callan, in the Supreme Court to-day, sentenced Don Rudolph Melhose, aged 32, labourer, to four years' imprisonment with hard labour. Melhose had been found guilty at the last criminal sessions of receiving liquor to the value of £169, knowing it to have been stolen. In pleading for the prisoner, Mr. Dickson said that Melhose had paid something like £488 for the liquor which, from a merchant's point of view, was valued at £196. Whatever the amount Melhose had paid, he had lost in the form of an indirect fine by reason of his own conduct. It was admitted that he had a fairly long list of convictions, but counsel felt the Court would not impose an increased sentence because of that fact. Business of Sly-Grogger "Melhose was admittedly carrying on the business of a sly-grogger in the present case," said Mr. Dickson, "and he has been convicted several times. He has been buying in big quantities and a man came along and offered to sell liquor on a black market. There is definitely a black market for liquor in this country, and the usual price is £3 a bottle for whisky. Melhose, when he read the newspapers, may well have concluded that the liquor was stolen, but, like any other man, he did not want to lose his £488 and did not report the matter to the police. I ask your Honor not to impose too big a sentence." His Honor said Mr. Dickson had done everything he possibly could for the prisoner, but, in his Honor's opinion, it was difficult to find anything that could be said in prisoner's favour; He said that for a first conviction for theft the maximum sentence was two years' imprisonment, but for receiving stolen property, knowing it to have been dishonestly obtained, the maximum sentence for a first offence was seven years. Where a person had been previously convicted of theft he could be given a term up to 14 years, but a person previously convicted of receiving, for a similar offence, could be sentenced to imprisonment for life. "That is the jeopardy which Melhose stands in to-day," said his Honor, "but I do not propose to go to such a length. The Legislature has made it plain that the crime of receiving is considered very grave." Prisoner's Record His Honor said that in 1935, at Hamilton, Melhose had been sentenced to six months' imprisonment on one charge of false pretences and to two years' reformative detention on another. Later that year he received two and a half years for breaking, entering and theft, and receiving. In August, 1939, he was again convicted of receiving and fined £20, and in July, 1941, he received a sentence of six months on each of two charges of theft. His remaining convictions related to I breaches of the Licensing Act.

"I am not at all impressed with his character," said his Honor. "The motive behind the transaction was that he needed the liquor for the business he indulged in. I have given the case considerable thought and he will be sentenced to four years' imprisonment with hard labour."

An order was made that the liquor recovered be returned to Cooke and Company, from where it had been stolen.