Thefts After Fake Motel Bookings

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31678, 14 May 1968, Page 28

Thefts After Fake Motel Bookings

(New Zealand Press Association)

PALMERSTON NORTH, May 13.

Telephone calls, purported to be from a married couple, asking motel proprietors to leave units unlocked, resulted in the theft of property worth $999.78 from three motels, Mr J. R. P. Horn, S.M., was told in Palmerston North yesterday.

An unemployed 18-year-old girl, who was granted interim suppression of name, admitted three charges of theft, and was remanded on bail to Monday for a probation report and sentence. Detective Senior-Sergeant D. J. Dwan said that on May 4 the proprietor of the Bamboo Lodge Motels, in Napier, received a Palmerston North telephone call from a man, purporting to be a Mr Mercer, asking for a unit to be booked and left unlocked because he and his wife would be arriving late. The next day It was found that property worth $342 had been stolen.

Property was stolen from the Rosetta Motels, in Raumati, and the South Pacific Motels, in Lower Hutt, by similar means, with the defendant acting as a tolls operator, Detective Senior-Ser-geant Dwan said. Television sets, radios,

blankets, chairs, and other articles, worth $973.78. had not been recovered, he said. Detective Senior-Sergeant Dwan said the girl’s accomplice had not been located by the police.