Painter For Sentence On Charge Of Armed Robbery

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29108, 21 January 1960, Page 19

Painter For Sentence On Charge Of Armed Robbery

(New Zeaiana Press Association)

WELLINGTON, January 20. Pleading guilty to a charge of armed robbery at Wellington on December 22, Moncrieff Richard Stechman, aged 31, painter, was remanded to the Supreme Court for sentence by Mr M. B. Scully, S.M., in the Magistrate’s Court at Wellington today. Mr G. I. Joseph appeared for Stechman.

On two other charges concerning the conversion of a Wellington City Corporation truck and the possession of an illegal weapon Stechman was remanded to February 3.

Henry Young, fruiterer, said on the morning of December 22 a man he recognised as accused walked into his shop and pulled out a small gun and said: “I don’t want any trouble from you.” Witness was ordered to put the money from his till into a paper bag. There was about £l5 in the till. The man backed from the shop, ran across the road and drove off in a cream van. Later, Young said, he recognised the van in a damaged condition and also identified the man who had robbed him when he

attended an identification parade at the central police station. Harold William Thomas Hodgson said he had been with Stechman on the morning of December 22, but though he had had drinks with him he could not be sure if Stechman had been his companion when the truck was taken as he “had been on a drunk.”

Hodgson said that on December 29 he had received a sentence of three months’ prison for the conversion of the truck. George Thomas Dawson, detective, said that when he interviewed Stechman on December 22, Stechman told him he had been drinking with a man named Harry at a hotel and had proceeded to a picture theatre where they were picked up by the police. Stechman told him: “I don’t know anything about a robbery in any shop. You have got hold of the wrong man.” Stechman also denied being the owner of a sports coat containing an automatic pistol, and said the money in his possession had been won playing crown and anchor, said Detective Dawson.