SENT TO GAOL

Auckland Star, Volume LXXVI, Issue 39, 15 February 1945, Page 3

SENT TO GAOL

receiver of tyres

GARAGE MAN'S OFFENCE

"He was tempted and he" fell," pleaded Mr. Allan Moody on behalf of John Charles Dill, aged 32 years, garage proprietor, of Clevedon, who came before Mr. Justice Fair in the Supreme Court to-day for sentence on two charges of having received motor tyres and tubes valued at £104, stolen from the Ardmore Air Base. "The men Avho took the tyres came to his place at 3 o'clock in the morning and, though he protested against taking charge of the tyres, he was persuaded to do so. To a comment by his Honor that this occurred on two occasions, counsel replied that, once having helped the other men, he felt he could not get out of it on the second occasion. Counsel presented a petition by residents of the district testifying to the regard felt for Dill.

The theft of tyres had become a scandal in New Zealand, said his Honor. Full weight would be given to what counsel had said, but in this case the offence had been repeated and the prisoner had been convicted of theft only eighteen months previously. The Court, therefore, could not consider meeting the case with a fine, and had the painful duty of imposing a term of imprisonment. Consequently, the prisoner would be sentenced to a term of twelve months' reformative detention.