MAGISTRATE’S COURT

Press, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 25244, 24 July 1947, Page 3

MAGISTRATE’S COURT

WEDNESDAY (Before Mr A. A. McLachlan, S.M.) REMANDED Ronald George Dempsey, a butcher, aged 36 (Mr D. W. Russell), pleaded guilty to five charges of theft. He was remanded until to-day. The charges were: on or about January 18 he stole a dynamo and head-lamp, valued at £2. the property of some person unknown; on May 23 he stole a dynamo and headlamp. valued at £1 19s 6d, the property of Bruce Moore; on June 6 he stole a dynamo and head-lamp, valued at £2. the property of Albert Williamson Lange; on July 4 he stole a dynamo, head-lamp. and J ear re 6ector of a total value of £4 os. the property of John Barrymore Lawson; on July 18 he stole a bicycle, valued at £l2. the property of Ravmond Jabez Harrison.

Senior-Sergeant G. H. L Holt said that f° r . some weeks bicycles had vanished on training nights from the Sydenham Football Hall or shed. Later the bicycles had been found, with their dynamos missing. One night a man was seen by a constable to carry a bicycle away to the back of a butcher s shop. When the constable accosted him he said that he did not know anything about the bicycle and he had not stolen it. Dempsey was under the influence of liquor at the time. All the dynamos but one had been recovered. Mr Russell said that accused was a married man with two young children and had been working in the same shop for 20 years, with no suspicion of dishonesty. Drink was the cause of this man’s lapse, and his employer was prepared to take him back.

Senior-Sergeant Holt said that these people were social pests and caused the public and police a lot of inconvenience. It was a stupid series of thefts, for the bicycles were always thrown in a section where they could be recovered easily. Mr Russell said that the accused had had his dynamo stolen in the first place, and it seemed that accused started taking dynamos as an act of retribution. He did not try to sell them. The Magistrate asked the probation officer to furnish a report. Dempsey was granted bail in his own recognisance of £25. Victor Horace Smith, a furniture manufacturer. aged 27. was remanded until July 30 on a charge of being intoxicated in charge of a motor-car. Bail was allowed at £25. with one surety of £25.