THEFT CHARGES ADMITTED

Press, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 25304, 2 October 1947, Page 8

THEFT CHARGES ADMITTED

RAILWAY LOCOMOTIVE DRIVER

BREAKING AND ENTERING DENIED (P.A.) PALMERSTON N.. Oct. 1. Pleading guilty in the Magistrate s Court to three charges of theft as a servant, one of common theft, and eight ox receiving stolen goods, Spencer Cuthbert Toon, a railway locomotive driver, a married man, aged 48, was committed to the Supreme Court at Palmerston North for sentence. < To three other charges of breaking and entering into premises and committing crimes therein, Toon pleaded not guilty. He reserved his defence, and was committed to the Supreme Court at Palmerston North for trial. The three charges of theft as a servant related to goods allegedly stolen from the New Zealand Railways over the period from June 1, 1945, to September 5, 1947, to a total value of £324. The goods involved in these charges included golf clubs, golf balls, a golf bsg. umbrellas, a radio receiving set, a tyre, a motor-car seat! a quantity qf pegs, eight new car tyres, a lawnmower, girls’ setekettes. razor blades, hair clips, hair ne*s, a bed sheet face towels, cot blankets, working trousers, women’s stockings, plastic handbags, women’s shoes, singlets, cotton I shorts, envelopes, note books, pest exterminator .powder, electric light bulbs, glue, gumboots, grates, scythe blades, car pumps, grease guns, car tools, crosscut saws carpentering tools, engineering tools, cement fencing, and wire car wheels.' The charge of common theft was that between May and August of this year he stole two large and two small wooden post blocks valued at £2 6s, the prpperty pf the Post and Telegraph Department. The eight charges of receiving stolen goods related to property valued at £237 3s 3d and ranged over the period from August, 1940, to September 5, 1947. The goods included paint, polish, tea, condensed milk, cough mixture, bottles of laxative, bottles of breath sweetener, headache cures, shaving cream, cake patty papers, braces, shoe laces, blind fittings, switches, valve connekions, malthoid, a motor fan, a lantern, paint brushes, water taps, sports coats, motor tyres, single sheets,, double sheets, women’s slippers, sandals.*a mattress, a car tyre, tooth paste, soap powder, cotton bed covers, girls’ shoes, sherry, hair brushes, butter cocoa, cordial syrup, soup powder, , wood bits, a tenon saw, a steel square and drill, a tent, steel planes, spoke shave, ‘and other tools.