Girl was a victim of 'stand-over tactics’

Press, 1 December 1978, Page 3

Girl was a victim of 'stand-over tactics’

Because she was a victim 1 of sumd-over tactics, an 18- ' year-old girl who had com- ] mitted more, than 100 fraud , offences at the instigation of 1 her boyfriend, was released I from Borstal training and i put on probation by Mr Jus- I tice Roper in the Supreme I Court yesterday. i Donna Fabiola Carmel Comber, aged 18, had been I sentenced in the Magistrate’s ■ Court to Borstal training on i a charge of using a docu- < rnent with intent to defraud. j< His Honour quashed that | sentence, put Comber on 1 probation for two years, H ordered her to live and work h where directed by the proba- j tion officer and not- to asso-: date or communicate with i her boyfriend, John Peter |j

Diggle, aged 20, who is now in jail. Mr R. J. Murfitt, for Comber, said that her attachment to Diggle had been total. Although he had abandoned her several times she had always returned to him to her cost. Diggle had used her as his “pigeon” to commit the frauds. After she was apprehended she was sent to Borstal. On her release in August she took a job. However, she did . >t remain long out of Diggle’s clutches. He telephoned her and demanded that she commit another fraud for nim. She objected and tried to break off the relationship. In the lunch-hour Diggle and another man, both heavily involved in the hard drug

scene, accosted her, put her! in a car and forcibly persuaded her to commit an-1 ; other fraud. Comber was given a bank--1 book which had been stolen from a parked car and she was ordered to forge a withdrawal slip for $5OO and ■ present it at the Cashel Street . branch of A.N.Z. Bank which she did. When Comber came out of the bank she handed the money to Diggle and the : other man. However, the! group had been under thej I observation of an alert de-j ■ tective who had followed' them and they were apprehended a short time later. The Magistrate had failed j to take into account the I emotional influence Diggle had exercised over the girl

and the fact that stand-over, tactics had been used to force her to commit the of-! fence, Mr Murfitt said. His Honour said it seemed! to be accepted that Comber was prevailed upon by her boyfriend, Diggle, to carry ou. the criminal act. Since 1976 she had been involved in something like 100 offences involving false pretences, forgery, credit by false pretence and the like, and in every case Diggle had been responsible for her offending. Only six weeks before committing the offence Comber had been released from Borstal. The probation officer was very sympathetic and the senior educational officer at Arohata Borstal had taken the unusual course of writing to Comber’s counsel supporting the appeal. She saw real hope for the girl. I think this is a case where rehabilitation is of paramount concern,” said his Honour.