Youths In Court After Gun-Point Arrest

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30156, 13 June 1963, Page 18

Youths In Court After Gun-Point Arrest

(A T etu Zealand Press Association)

TIMARU, June -12

Three youths, who elected summary jurisdiction in the Magistrate's Court at Timaru, before Mr E. S. J. Crutchley, S.M., today pleaded guilty jointly to 23 charges, involving 15 charges of burglary’, five charges of theft, one of unlawfully taking a motor-car and two charges of unlawfully interfering with a car. The youths, who appeared on remand, were John Morgan Pickworth. aged 20. single, of no fixed abode, Paul Lennon, aged 20, a truck driver, of Timaru. and Ernest Hancox, aged 17, a workman, of Christchurch. In addition, Pickiworth pleaded guilty to four charges of unlawfully converting a motor-car and five charges of burglary. Lennon also pleaded guilty to two separate charges of theft. Detective-Sergeant E. G. Ward said that the three accused started a chain of events beginning with the unlawful conversion of a car at Timaru on May 20, and ending with their arrest at gun-ipoint in Fairlie by Constable Jackson on May 28. The recital of the charges in Court occupied 27 minutes. After listing the various baches and other places which had been broken into, Detective-Sergeant Ward said that on May 28 at 12.40 p.m., Constable Jackson received information from a local resident that he had seen some persons breaking into premises on the main street at Fairlie. Constable Jackson and the resident, Mr J. A. Bates, went to the premises of the Canterbury Farmers’ Co-operative store where there was a car with its doors open parked outside the building. The constable- removed the ignition key. He then walked into the building and heard movement at the rear of the premises. He then went outside and sent Mr Bates for assistance.

.Constable Jackson - then heard the intruders come to the front of the shop and one of them said there was someone outside. He then heard them work the bolts of rifles. Hancox walked on to the footpath holding a rifle across his. chest. Constable Jacksoi) asked him to drop the rifle and put his hands up, but Hancox replied: “Watch it, bud.”

The cither two accused came out carrying rifles and ran to the car and jumped in. Constable Jackson fired a warning shot and asked them to come out with their hands up. They complied. Mr Bates, by tots time, was covering the constable with a shotgun. In all. the three defendants stole property to the value of £495, but property valued at £356 had been recovered. Damage to property was assessed at £219, including the sum of £219 for damage to a motor-car. The total restitution amounted to £322.

There was an additional amount of £2 19s 8d which lhe defendant Lennon had not accounted for.

The thefts were mainly from baches ait Lake Alexandrina, Omarama, Lake Ohau and Tekapo.

The accused were stood down- until this afternoon to allow the Magistrate to read reports on them. Pickworth was sentenced to two years’ imprisonment on a charge of converting a car at Timaru, valued at £550, between May 6 and May 8, and for breaking and entering a bach owned by Leonard Waters at Whale stream, 17 miles from Lake Pukaki. On the other charges he was convicted and discharged. Lennon received a similar sentence for the unlawful conversion of a car at Timaru on May 20, valued at £6OO, the property of Trevor Ronald Segar, of 19 Angland avenue. On the other charges he was convicted and discharged.

Because of the submissions made by his counsel (Mr R. P. MeAleer) who asked'for probation for Hancox, HaneoX was convicted on two charges, but remanded to Christchurch for sentence to give the Magistrate ample time to considler the submissions.

Pickworth, said the Magistrate, had ' served a term in Borstal, and had been recalled there because of subsequent bad behaviour. ’ The probation officer had sought employment for him and tried to assist him, but in spite of this he had embarked on a series of serious offences. For his own good, and for the protection of the public he required a long term of imprisonment. Lennon, too, had served a term in Borstal and had been recalled because of bad behaviour, said the Magistrate. It was too much to expect the Court to consider anything other than a substantial term of imprisonment. The Court would ask the prison authorities to ensure that he and Pickworth served their sentences in different institutions.