SUPREME COURT Youth who robbed doctor gaoled

Press, Volume CXVI, Issue 34106, 19 March 1976, Page 15

SUPREME COURT Youth who robbed doctor gaoled

A masked youth brandishing a knife who burst .into a Rangiora doctor’s home with two companions, threatened the doctor, his wife and their guests and de-i manded money and| drugs, was gaoled fori three years and a half, by Mr Justice Roper ini the Supreme Court yesterday. The youth, Donald James Keefe, aged 17, a storeman. pleaded guilty on arraignment to a charge that oni

December 27, with two others, he robbed Arthur Percival Cotter, of $52 and narcotics and prescription poisons. His Honour made an order that Keefe be kept apart from adult prisoners. * Mr C. A. McVeigh, for the * prisoner, said that he had spo’ken to an aunt of Keefes who had taken the place of his patients after arriving about twelve I months ago from Hastings ha\ ling only the clothes he stood up in. i Keele had woiked reasonablv I well but unfortunate!' he had ; fallen in with a crow<i <>f undesirable vouth* in Kaianoi and '{had become involved in the ding scene and this »errible <;imc I Keefe had said that al the l

[time he wa< standing there with; the knife in his hands he wa> I trembling all over He had plunged into the offence with'out giving it much thought His Honour said that oonsid e i able- planning had gone into the commi.-sion of the crime Mr McVeigh *aid that Keefe* aunt had *aid that the box was easilv led and it was apparent from the psychological report that he was very simple l and could just read and write It wa* the classic <a*>e of [ a young, uneducated, simple Maori box leaving home and be coming involved in matters be v ond his control. He was not the master mind behind theplan. Mr McVeieh said His Honour said that on th« night of De< embe* 27 last. I” davs after Keefe had bcm ad milted t<» probation on • •hater* of burglar v anti theft hr and two others went to the homo of a Ransuua do. l< » The fh* for. his vv-.fr and I' rir guests wetp th'eatrned with a dintgun and a knife “Keefe, you were masked and*

carried the knife While your companion led ’he do< tot off t« steal money and drugs you guarded th< other people." hi* , Honour said. “It appeal« from the evidence that the doctor has a bad heart 'and a request by hi* wile that , slie should go to him on that I account, was apparently t e fused Rut I cannot accept that the circumstance.* were such that you probably did not realise tie significance of the »equest or (the cruelty in refusing it •‘lt is apparent from xour own *tatemeni. Keefe, that um 'placed a leading nart in till* matter. I accent that vou ha'* had few chances tn life and indeed it could be -aid that *o- ■ ictv tailed 'on \t the ac» LI vou left school and apparently you can neither lead nor w rite. a difficult tnattei ’»» set’ten- * xmi bin I *Mc*h*d .-o'-mte iment,” said His Honour.