Girl stole from pensioners

Press, 21 April 1982, Page 7

Girl stole from pensioners

A’ sentence of corrective training was imposed on a girl, aged 18, for what the Judge described as two very despicable thefts from pensioners into whose pensioner units she had been invited after saying that she and a companion were visiting lonely people; The defendent, Carol Elaine Goodman, unemployed (Mr C. D. Eason) was' appearing for sentence after earlier admitting charges of thefts of $BO and $9O from two pensioners. The police statement of the offences had been that the defendant and another girl, who had been dealt with in another jurisdiction, had gone to the pensioners’ fiats, saying they were visiting lonely, elderly people. In both flats they had Been invited in and given cups of tea.

A sum of $BO was stolen from a handbag at one flat and at the second flat, at which the girls offered to get an article repaired for the pensioner, they had taken the penioner to a post office to withdraw $lOO from her savings account. They had taken $9O and given the pensioner $lO.

Mr Eason said 'the defendant had had a deprived background. She had kept out of trouble while living with her sister in a family environment.

She had returned to this situation and had a job, found through the Labour Department. Mr Eason sought a further opportunity for the defendant to prove that in her present environment she could live happily in society. The Judge traversed the defendant’s past offending and said she had been “a dishonest young woman for a long time.” He said he saw no justification for extending leniency, and would be failing in his duty if he dealt with her in any other way than taking away her liberty for a short time.