STOLE A MOTOR-CYCLE

Dominion, Volume 21, Issue 8, 4 October 1927, Page 6

STOLE A MOTOR-CYCLE

AND YOUNG LADY’S SIGNET RING Palmerston North, October 3. A. hawker, aged 21 years, Alfred Arthur Stanley, appeared before Mr. J. L. Stout, S.M., in the Magistrate’s Court this morning, when lie was charged with the theft of a motorcycle valued at £2O, the property of T. M. Whyte, and with the theft of a signet ring valued at £lO, the property of Eileen Norris. Accused pleaded .guilty to both charges. Senior-Sergeant O’Grady, on behalf of the police, stated that accused borrowed the motor-cycle from a friend of his, promising to return it the same day. Instead of this, however, lie and another youth rode to Wanganui, and from there on to Waitara. In that town he sold the cycle for 355. As far as the theft of the ring was concerned, the Senior-Sergeant explained that one day accused met a young lady in the street,' and asked to be allowed to examine her ring to see if it was gold. He then put' it on his finger, and declared that he could not remove it. He said that he would go home and see if he could get it off, but the owner of the ring never saw it again. Accused had given it to one of the hockey girls who recently visited Palmerston Norfji.

In sentencing accused, the Magistrate pointed out that in 1919 he had been granted probation for theft, and had since been twice convicted for giving false alarms of fire. The present case seemed to be one of deliberate theft, ' with no, mitigating circumstances. On the first charge accused was sentenced to three months’ imprisonment, and to one month’s imprisonment on the second, the sentences to be concurrent.