Two burglars jailed

Press, 31 July 1986, Page 4

Two burglars jailed

Two men each received a sentence of a year’s imprisonment, in the District Court yesterday, on a joint charge of breaking and entering the premises of Producers, Ltd, in Cashel Street, on the evening of December 27 last

The defendants, John Frederick Mackie, aged 30, a labourer, and Gary William McQuillan, aged 32, unemployed, had denied the charge but were found guilty by a jury at their trial this month.

Miss E. H. B. Thompson, for both defendants, said their convictions had been based on circumstantial evidence and to some extent they had a real and perhaps justified sense of grievance that they were the “Johnnies-on-the-spot” when the police arrived. There had been no forensic tests made of cartons found on the roof or tools found in the street.

The identity of the “real” burglars was sever properly checked o(f#by the police.

Miss Thompson asked that a sentence be imposed with a rehabilitative aspect, allowing both men to remain in the community. The Judge said the burglary, of which the jury had found both men guilty, involved livestock drench of considerable value, had it succeeded. Neither defendant was a stranger to the courts, and they had been given previous opportunities for rehabilitation. The community had to be protected, and to leave the two loose in the community was unrealistic.