M.O.T. cap misused

Press, 29 December 1980, Page 13

M.O.T. cap misused

PA Tauranga After dressing as a traffic officer, an unemployed youth wandered the streets of Tauranga and ordered a bus driver to move his bus from where it was normally parked, the District Court at Tauranga heard this week. Roger Rahotia Tehemita Mervin Hohaia, aged 18, of Te Puke, admitted stealing a traffic officer’s cap, valued at $3O, and two charges of assuming the dress of a traffic officer. Sergeant R. E. Lynch said Hohaia took a traffic officer’s cap from a Ministry of Transport car parked behind the Te Puke Borough Council building on December 10. The next day he went to Tauranga. Dressed in black trousers, a white shirt with black tie, ■ and wearing the cap, he wandered about the streets. .'

On December' 17, he re-

turned to Tauranga wearing the same uniform except for the cap, which he left at home in preference for one of a Railways officer. A policeman who saw him in the street became suspicious. Hohaia freely admitted that he was not really a traffic officer. He told the police how he had taken the Ministry of Transport cap the previous week, and said he had taken it because he liked uniforms and wanted to become a traffic officer. The only time he assumed the authority of a traffic officer was when he asked a bus driver to move his vehicle from a bus stop. Senior Traffic Officer E. E. Drabble told the Court that Hohaia had approached him several months ago, asking about the possibility of becoming a traffic officer. Mr Drabble said he had tried todiscourage Hohaia because he did not think he

had the qualifications, for the job. “There are properly appointed traffic officers, and vou are not, one,” Judge Wjjson told Hohaia. “This was a stupid piece of behaviour which would have had serious connotations.” The Judge fined Hohaia $5O for stealing the officer’s cap.’ On the .other two chargeS, he convicted him > and ordered him to come up i for sentence within six months if called upon.