COLLECTION BOX STOLEN

Press, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23352, 11 June 1941, Page 10

COLLECTION BOX STOLEN

♦ YOUNG MAN SENT TO GAOL (P.A.) AUCKLAND, June 10. The flimsiness of some collection boxes used in street collections was criticised, by the Magistrate and the police when John Page Jones, aged 20, a labourer, pleaded guilty in the Magistrate’s' Court of the theft of a collection box and its contents, amounting to £2 9s, the property of the Fighting Forces Fund. Detective-Sergeant Nalder said that Jones offered to accompany an authorised woman collector into hotel bars to solicit donations, saying that he had returned from active service in Egypt. Later in the day, Jones told the collector there was a man in a hotel bar who wished to give a 10s note, but did not like giving to a woman collector. Jones took the box, but did not return. He subsequently admitted to a detective that he had opened the box and had extracted the contents. The detective demonstrated to the

Court how easily the coins could be extracted from the flimsy collection box. He said that Jones had been placed on probation last year on charge of fraud. The Magistrate (Mr F.-K. Hunt) sentenced Jones to three months’ imprisonment. The Magistrate said that collection boxes should be so constructed that it was impossible to extract the money until they were officially opened.