Stolen clothing found at woman’s home

Press, 27 September 1983, Page 6

Stolen clothing found at woman’s home

One hundred hours of community service was the sentence imposed by Judge Palmer on a woman who appeared before him in the District Court yesterday on a charge of receiving. Sharon Jean Maynard, aged 32, unemployed (Mr D. C. Fitzgibbon) was also put on probation for 12 months and ordered to live and work as directed.

Receiving, said the Judge, was comparable to burglary in seriousness.

What was so striking about the “frightening” incidence of burglary in Christchurch was the apparent ease with which offenders were able to dispose of the property. The Judge said he could not understand why Maynard//should allow her premises to be used to store stolen property when she was under no obligation to anyone to do so. Mr Fitzgibbon said that it was his client’s first dishonesty offence. Maynard had taken police to the stolen clothing when they arrived at her address with a search warrant.

He said that his client had reason to be in fear of the person who “dropped the clothing off" and that was why she refused to name him to the police. Clothing worth $1629 was found when police searched the defendant’s home. It was part of $12,968 worth of clothing taken from a Linwood Avenue boutique burgled five days earlier. Maynard admitted receiving the clothing knowing it to have been stolen. CHARGE DENIED

October 26 is the date set for the defended hearing of a charge of assault laid against a former director of Quill Humphreys, said his counsel (Mr B. McClelland, Q.C.).

Robert George Kingscote, aged 61, was remanded to October 25 for a defended hearing. He is charged with as-

saulting Richard Cuthbert, one of a number of antiapartheid shareholders who attended the company’s annual meeting on August 11.

The charge relates to an alleged chair-pulling incident by Mr Kingscote as Mr Cuthbert was about to sit down. SUPPRESSION Interim suppression was given to a housewife, aged 25, convicted on two charges of procuring a prescription drug without reasonable excuse. She was remanded to October 10 for a probation report and sentence. The woman, represented by Mr D. C. Fitzgibbon, had {•resented the two prescripions at two chemist shops on May 2 and 24, to obtain restricted drugs, said Sergent G. G. Cleland.

Mr Fitzgibbon said his client, a first offender, had a drug habit she was trying to overcome. The offences occurred because she needed the drug for herself and did not want to become involved with drug dealers, he said.

Interim suppression was granted, said the Judge, because he did not want the defendant to become a target of others. PSYCHIATRIC REPORT A psychiatric report is to be made on a man, aged 29, charged with assaulting his father with intent to injure him.

John Elliot Garron, a sickness beneficiary (Mr G. R. Lascelles) was remanded in custody to October 10 without plea. He is charged with committing the offence on September 21. When the defendant first appeared last week the police prosecutor said the man’s father was in the intensive care unit at the public hospital and on the seriously ill list. Sergeant Cleland said that the complainant was still on the seriously ill list.