TWO YOUTHS EACH FINED £40

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29315, 21 September 1960, Page 7

TWO YOUTHS EACH FINED £40

Brandished Bicycle Chain

(New Zealand Press Association) ROTORUA, Sept. 20. Bicycle chains were associated with the worst forms of thuggery, and their possession was regarded as serious, said Mr G. J, Donne, S.M., in the Rotorua Magistrate’s Court today. He was sentencing Roderick Charles Suibritzky, aged 19, and Francis Rice, aged 17, both employed ait the Kinleith laboratory, who appeared in the Putaruru Miagistrate’s Court last Thursday on a charge of brandishing an 18in bicycle chain in Tokoroa to intimidate a man. - Both were fined £4O and released on probation for three years. Conditions of probation are that they pay the fine as directed by the probation officer, reside and work where directed, refrain from alcohol, and for the first year of probation report twice a week to the police. The Magistrate said the offence was the first of its kind at Tokoroa. The Legislature imposed a maximum penalty of 12 months’ imprisonment or a fine of £lOO.

“It is most important that any would-be offenders in Tokoroa or elsewhere realise just how serious the Court considers such an offence. As the probation officer points out, there is an unstable element in Kinleith, and for the purpose of informing this unstable element I now say that

similar offenders will receive imprisonment and cannot expect to get leniency from the Court. “You are under 21, and legislation says that you shall not be imprisoned unless there are exceptional circumstances,” the Magistrate said to the accused. “The probation officer’s report on you both and your explanation give a somewhat different complexion to the matter. He says that he does not consider Borstal training appropriate in this case, and on seeing his report I must agree. I have decided to extend leniency to you that cannot be expected again.”