Dunedin hermit on 38 more charges

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33625, 29 August 1974, Page 2

Dunedin hermit on 38 more charges

(N.Z. Press Association)

DUNEDIN, August 28. A hermit who was the subject of a big manhunt earlier this year appeared in the Dunedin Magistrate’s Court today to answer 38 more charges.

The man, whose name was suppressed pending the final outcome of psychiatric examinations, pleaded guilty to all charges. Police said the 39-year-old man might still have a considerable amount of stolen property at his hideout, which has not been found. The police also suspect that a second person may have been involved in the offences committed in the Waldron-

ville area, and that this person provided refuge for the man. The defendant pleaded guilty to 19 charges of burglary, 10 of theft, five of false pretence, two of unlawfully taking a motor vehicle, one of credit by fraud, and one of unlawfully being in enclosed premises. Mr J. D. Murray, S.M., remanded the man in custody until September 6 for a further psychiatric report. The defendant, who was represented by Mr J. B. Robertson, had earlier pleaded guilty to wounding John Walter Wragge, and to abducting a 14-year-old girl, with intent to have sexual intercourse.

Today, Detective SeniorSergeant D. W. B. Warner said the defendant had been

found and arrested on July i 29, this year. On May 10, 1968, the man had told his wife he was going to Auckland. It was known that he left Dunedin on May 12 that year, but he was not heard from, nor were his whereabouts known for some years. After his arrest at Waldronville on July 29, police inquiries showed that he was in Perth, Western Australia, on June 6, 1968, then went back to Australia, where he was convicted in a Brisbane court on theft and false pretence charges in November 1968. From that time his movements were not known, until early 1973, at which time he had begun to commit offences in the Waldronville area.

The defendant claimed he could not remember many of the offences. It appeared that he frequented the area armed with a rifle and usually carrying a green tramper’s pack, which he used to carry off the stolen property. He had been sighted on a number of occasions, but he always made good his escape. The value of the property involved in the thefts and burglaries the defendant has been charged with is $8408; the money and goods obtained by false pretence is $312.