‘Grand-scale’ offences bring imprisonment

Press, 16 July 1983, Page 5

‘Grand-scale’ offences bring imprisonment

Eighteen months imprisonment was imposed by Judge Bisphan on a young man who appeared for sentence in the District Court yesterday on 17 offences involving property to a total value of $14,500.

He told Ward lan Magon, aged 18, unemployed (Miss J. Malcolm) that his offending had been on the “grand scale” involving theft, organised receiving, and the sale of property, and dealing in drugs.

The only possible sentence for offending on such a scale, said the Judge, was a term of imprisonment in a youth prison.

Earlier Magon had admitted seven charges of receiving property, to a total value of $13,209, four charges of burglary, three charges of theft involving property worth $1313, one charge of possessing can-

nabis, and a charge of possessing the drug for sale or supply. The offences took place between August, last year, and March, this year. Magon, said the police prosecutor at the earlier hearing, had been involved in criminal behaviour from time to time and had sold property to several receivers — one of them an undercover policeman working in Christchurch. Miss Malcolm said her client was aware that he faced a prison term and urged that it not be too lengthy. Magon had become involved in offending through his association with a group of people engaged in criminal activities with whom he had lived for 12 months at a Peterborough Street address, she said.

The defendant who, she said, suffered from a gross personality deficiency was somewhat naive and easily led. ROBBERY ATTEMPT Jurisdiction was declined by the Judge in the case of a man convicted on a charge of attempted armed robbery. Peter Hendriks, aged 26, unemployed (Mr K. J. Grave) was committed in custody to the High Court for sentence on a date to be fixed. Sergeant M. J. South said that at 2.15 p.m. on July 6 the defendant went into a building society office in Christchurch. He had a pistol in one hand and a bag in the other. Hendriks went up to the sole female cashier, aged 23, pointed the pistol at her and told her to fill the bag.

The cashier told the defendant that “he must be joking,” and sat with her arms folded. Hendriks then left the premises saying he would be back. He was located next day. He told the police that it had been a spur of the moment offence. The pistol was a replica Colt which, Hendriks said, he always carried for security, said Sergeant South. The defendant also admitted and was convicted on charges of incurring debts at four Christchurch hotels in which he had obtained meals and accommodation. Compensation of $453 was sought in respect of these offences. Hendriks was remanded to July 22 for a probation report and sentence. An application for bail by Mr Grave was refused.