Builder fined $2000 for $8000 theft

Press, 18 April 1980, Page 5

Builder fined $2000 for $8000 theft

. A builder who was earlier convicted of stealing plumbing materials of a total value of $8574 was fined $2OOO when he appeared for sentence before Judge Paterson in the District Court yesterday. The amount of the property involved and the method of cheating the firm were very serious, he told Kent Carnegie Neilson, aged 32.

In addition to the fine Neilson was sentenced to six months periodic detention and because a vehicle was used to transport the stolen property his driver’s licence was cancelled for 12 months.

Judge Paterson said it was incomprehensible that a man who had gone to the trouble of training himself in all aspects of the building trade, and to have apparently run it with success in adverse times, should have tried to profit at the expense of a firm he was dealing with. “You deserve the fall which must follow and with you, you take your reputation, your family, and your employees,” he said. Counsel (Mr P. B. McMenamin) said his client had already suffered substantially from the offending

which had begun innocently. Through an employee of the complainant firm he had obtained plumbing items at what he believed were staff concession rates. Later it was found that the money had been kept by the. employee who now faced criminal proceedings. While accepting that the offence was a relatively grave one, Mr McMenamin said imprisonment would spell financial ruin for Neilson, place seven employees out of work, and reduce his family to a very parlous state.

Last week Neilson had pleaded guilty to a charge of stealing hot water cylinders, baths, toilet-bowls, copper piping, and other plumbing materials to a total value of $8574, the property of Oakleys, Ltd. The offences took place between September, 1979, and March this year. COMMUNITY WORK

A beneficiary convicted of possessing cannabis for supply was placed on probation for 12 months and ordered to do 120 hours of community work. Judge Paterson said he was concerned that Doreen

Myrtle Fraser, aged 39, should be appearing for sentence on a drug charge so soon after being convicted in February on a charge of cultivating cannabis. It was a flagrant defiance of the law, he said.

Last week Fraser admitted the offence.

The total weight of the cannabis found in her possession was 110 grams. Three bags of the drug were found by a police dog in a kerosine tin in the hallway of her home. Also found were two roaches, a purse containing cannabis leaf, and three cannabis deals in plastic bags in the defendant’s car.

Counsel (Mr J. S. Halls) said his client was not a drug dealer in any sense of the word. She had only been involved with cannabis for six .months and the drug was for her own use. ARSON CHARGE

Rockford Hill, aged 22, unemployed, was remanded on bail to April 24 on a charge of arson. It is alleged that Hill wilfully set fire to a Gloucester Street flat on or about April 15. No plea was entered.