SHOP-LIFTING.

Press, Volume LIX, Issue 17706, 7 March 1923, Page 4

SHOP-LIFTING.

—* — FIVE PEOPLE SENTENCED.

The five persons who were convicted last week on three charges of having stolen articles to the value of £6 17s lid from Strange and Co., Hallenstein Bros., and the Drapery Importing Company, oame before Mr H. Y. "Widdowson, S.M., at the Magistrate's Court yesterday to he sentenced. They were Elsie May Clianey, aged 27 years, and Frances Alice Cairns, aged two married women, Stanley Alan Miller, aged 22 years, and David Gordon Miller, aged 19 years, sons of Mrs Cairns, and Grace Pearee, aged 2-3 years, who is engaged to one oD the men. Mr W. F. Tracy appeared for Mrs Cairns, and Mr F. D. Sargent for the others.

Mr Sargent asked that the young people might be admitted to probation. In regard to Mrs Cairns, he submitted that something short of a tenn of imprisonment might be inflicted. The Magistrate said that the probation officer's report simply gave an account o[ the women, who tliey were, and their past characters so far as was known. As Mrs Chaney had a. helpless mother dependent on her, it was asked that she might be leniently dealt with. Nothing was known against the. women. Each accused had pleaded guilty to the charges. The probation officer had said that it was only fair to add that the men had not joined the party until after Hallenstein Bros, and Strange and Co.'s shops had been visited. The Probation Officer (Rev. F. Rule): I ascertained from the firms that that was correct. i .

The Magistrate: Well, if they were accessories after the fact, they aro as bad as the principal offenders. They were apparently with the party when the theft at the D.I.C. was committed.

In summing up the case, the Magistrate snid there were fire persons, four related to one another, and a girl engaged to one of them. The theft was commonly known as shop-lifting, and it waa a mean, contemptible class of theft. It was often very diffiailt to detect, and often it brought blame and suspicion on innocent people. He could not deal with the offence in a ligl't maimer. One of the women had ft mother dependent on her, and he had been asked to make the sentence light in order that hard--ship should nos fall on her mother. The person herself was to blame. A sentence would be given in the hope that it would act as a deterrent to ot! crs. Each accused was sentenced to one month's imprisonment on each charge, sentences to be- concurrent.

As the Magistrate uttered the sentence, the two elder women swooned and fell to the floor.