MAN ON 42 CHARGES

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32048, 24 July 1969, Page 6

MAN ON 42 CHARGES

Five Years Gaol

Said to have “an appalling record” over the years, not only in New Zealand but in other countries, > Eric Neville Hill, aged 58, was sentenced by Mr Justice Macarthur in the Supreme Court yesterday to a total of five years' imprisonment on 42 charges —2B of false pretences and 14 of obtaining credit by fraud.

Hill (Mr S. G. Erber) had been committed to the Supreme Court for sentence after pleading guilty to all charges in the Magistrate's Court. His Honour said that he had no option, in view of Hill’s record, but to regard the public interest as paramount. The sentence of preventive detention having been abolished, there was no course open but to impose a substantial finite term of imprisonment. Cumulative Terms On charges of false pretences involving Wright, Stephenson and Company, Ltd, and the Cashmere Garage, Ltd, Hill was sentenced to cumulative terms of three and two years imprisonment, and on all remaining charges sentenced to terms of three months imprisonment, concurrent one with another and with the head sentence.

Mr Erber, in submissions, said that Hill, since 1930, had spent 18 years in prison, having been sentenced to finite terms totalling 20 years, and to preventive detention, of which latter sentence he had served three years. Further Remand

Edward Laurence Barkie. aged 30, a truck-driver (Mr W. A. Wilson), who appeared before Mr Justice Wilson in the Supreme Court yesterday for sentence on a charge of theft by failing to account, was further remanded to July 25, pending appearance in the Magistrate’s Court today for sentence on charges of false pretences.