MAGISTRATE'S COURT

Press, Volume LXXII, Issue 21974, 24 December 1936, Page 13

MAGISTRATE'S COURT

♦ WEDNESDAY (Before Mr E. C. Levvey, S.M.) CHARGE OF THEFT William Edward Ryan, labourer, aged 25, of Chester street, and William Frederick Johnston, plasterer, aged 38, of Wellington, were both sentenced to 30 days' imprisonment on a charge of stealing a ham, valued at 14s 6d. the property of the Self-Help Stores Company. A charge against. Johnston of receiving the ham from Ryan when he knew it to have been dishonestly obtained was struck out. SERIOUS OFFENCE Norman Sutherland (Mr N. S. Bowie) was charged with instigating the escape of a mental patient and with knowingly assisting a mental patient to escape. The police offered no evidence on the first charge and on the second Sutherland was convicted and fined £25, with two months' imprisonment as the penalty for default. Sub-Inspector Mac Lean said the patient, who was a nephew of Sutherland, I had actually been taken from the instij tution, the Templeton Farm School, by a man named Martin, who took him to Sutherland at the sailors' home in Lyttelton. The boy had been sent to Wellington and was in work there when he was taken into custody. Sutherland said in a statement that he had not thought he was doing wrong, but he realised now that he had assisted the boy to escape. . ''This is regarded as a serious offence." said the magistrate in imposing the penalty, "but in view of the circumstances, I will not impose a sentence of imprisonment in the first inDRUNKENNESS Margaret Cecilia Hansbury, a domestic aged 44, described as having no fixed abode, was charged with being found drunk in Moorhouse avenue on December 22 and with a breach of a prohibition order on the same date. On the first charge Hansbury was convicted and sentenced to 14 days' imprisonment, and on the other two she was convicted and discharged. Thomas Clarkson, a labourer, aged 50, was convicted and fined 20s on a charge of being found drunk in Cathedral square on December 22.