SUPREME COURT Sentences For Burglary: Three Appeals Dismissed

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31112, 15 July 1966, Page 7

SUPREME COURT Sentences For Burglary: Three Appeals Dismissed

Three appeals against prison sentences for burglary and receiving were dismissed

when beard by Mr Justice Wilson in the Supreme Court yesterday. Burglary and receiving were on the increase in Christchurch, said his Honour, and it was the court’s duty to discourage those engaging in such crimes. Of Colin Wayne Greenbank, aged 23 (Mr S. G. Erber), who appealed against three years’ imprisonment on burglary charges, hi's Honour said: “This young man is like many another who comes before us on such charges—he is too lazy to work, and thinks he will get money by obtaining it dishonestly.

“The duty of the court is to make that idea unrealistic,” said his Honour, dismissing the appeal. Greenbank’s excuse for burglary, his Honour said, had been that he himself had been a victim of a burglary, to the extent of £lOO. “But his reaction was to take other people’s goods to the value of many times £100,” his Honour said.

Furthermore, Greenbank ha! just been released from two years’ imprisonment for burglary when he had committed the present offences. “Begging For Imprisonment” Robert Thomas Webster, aged 21 (Mr J. H. F. Macfarlane), who appealed unsuccessfully against two years’ imprisonment for the burglary of a supermarket was described by his Honour as a young man who had been loafing about with the idea that he could make a living by taking other people’s property. Webster, through Mr Macfarlane, had submitted that his sentence was excessive in view of three matters —that he was only 21, that he did not have a bad list of convictions, and that he had never had the benefit Of institutional training. Webster had been treated with extraordinary leniency in the past, said his Honour, but the only effect had been to encourage him in the thought that he could commit crime with impunity. “The time of reckoning has come for him,” said his Honour. “He was just beg-

ging for a sentence of imprisonment. Everything else has been tried, and failed." Third Conviction For Receiving A sentence of 18 months’ imprisonment on James Charles Doyle, aged 21 (Mr Erber), for receiving stolen goods, was not inappropriate, since it was his third conviction for the offence, said his Honour, dismissing Doyle’s appeal against that term. Mr Erber had submitted that it was excessive in that Doyle had been a minor par-

ticlpant in the episode resulting in his conviction, and sugtested that a fine and probation would have sufficed. His Honour said that Doyle had been on probation at the time of his offence, so that he was not one who responded to leniency. “It is well known to the court that theft, burglary, and receiving are growing more prevalent in Christchurch," said his Honour. “It is the duty of the court to discourage those who take part in acquiring goods unlawfully and disposing of them.”