SERIES OF THEFTS

Dominion, Volume 21, Issue 261, 4 August 1928, Page 12

SERIES OF THEFTS

REFORMATIVE DETENTION FOR NURSE Alone in a strange country,- disillusioned in regard to her employment, and practically penniless, Hut he Grace Moat, a young Englishwoman, came to the conclusion that an ill fate was dogging her footsteps in New Zealand. Lack of employment and inability to keep those positions she (lid obtain, led her into temptation, with the result that she committed a number of thefts, three ofwhich she admitted to Mr. E. Page, S.M., in the Magistrate’s Court yesterday. The charges concerned the theft of £3. the property of Elizabeth McArthur Simpson, and of a ring, valued at £1 10s., belonging to Nancy Sabine Pasley. , Chief-Detective Ward, who prosecuted, stated that on July 27 accused had pleaded guilty to stealing £lO from Mary Kate 7'rown. Moat was represented byMr. W. E. Leicester. According to Chief-Detective Ward, accused, who was 27 years of age and single, came out from England in 1021 and went to Christchurch, whore she was to obtain employment. She remained in the southern city until June last, when she came to Wellington, boarding at the Girls’ Friendly Society Hostel. While there she took £3 from the purse of a fellow boarder. Accused then went to stay at the Y.W.. :.A. hostel, at which place she looked through a crack in a door and saw and old lady putting some money into a purse. She later went: into the room and took the nl o ney —£10—from the purse. The police were'informed, inquiries, made, and accused was questioned. Nine pouuds ten i shillings of the missing money was recovered. "The police don’t give her a very glowing character,” said Mr. Leicester, who added that his client was really not responsible for the position she had found herself in. When she agreed to come out to New Zealand she understood that she was to come out as a kind of nursery maid. When she arrived in Christchurch slm interviewed her prospective mistress and found that she was wanted to act as housemaid, and not as a nurserymaid. She then tried to do some nursing, but found that she was not sufficiently experienced for the standards demanded out here. The unfortunate girl, continued counsel, found herself without 'money, without friends, and without relatives, with the result that she was induced to indulge in a temptation to steal. While in Wellington she went to the'lmmigration Department for help, but was met with the disheartening reply that, since she had been nominated by a private individual the Department could uot help her. The Magistrate remarked that the probation officer (Miss Simpson) had suggested that accused needed disciplining. He proposed to sentence her to a period of twelve months’ reformative detention on the charge of stealing £lO. On the other two charges she was convicted, and ordered to come up for sentence if called ' upon.