STOLE BOTTLE OF CREAM

Dominion, Volume 22, Issue 72, 18 December 1928, Page 12

STOLE BOTTLE OF CREAM

THIEF SENTENCED To IMPRISONMENT.

In . consequence of complaints from Thorudou residents that tlieir milk and cream bottles had a habit of disappearing overnight, the City Council recently sent a man to keep a watch in the district. In the early hours of Sunday morning a man whose actions seemed suspicious, was seep in Hobson Street, and the aid of a constable was enlisted. After a. search they found the man in Tinakori Road in possession of a bottle of cream and a cooked shoulder of mat, "tori around which was wrapped a pillowslip. The man, Stanley Alekna, a Russian, aged 42,was escorted to the Police Sta- , lion, where he admitted taking the articles. He appeared in the Magistrate's Court yesterday, before Mr. J. 11. Salmon, S.M., and pleaded guilty to the theft of a bottle of cream valued at ' Sd.. and a bottle valued at-3d., the property of Mrs. Kate Atkins, and to stealing a piece of meat valued at about 25., and a pillow-slip valued at about 2s. 6<l. •- < Sub-Inspector Lander said that accused had admitted taking the cream from a hqtise in George Street, and the other goods front Fitzherbert Terrace. Jt appeared, added Mr. Lander, that the thefts were intentional, for the City Council had received a good many complaints regarding similar thefts. It was , a strange thing, he said, that when accused lived in the Willis Street locality, there were similar complaints, which ceased when lie went to live in Thorndon, ' -from which district, came the new com--1 plaints. Four milk 'bottles- were found in accused's possessipn. Apparently they had been stolen, for accused did not deal from the council (who would always trade bottles back), but from a private vendor. “It. is true that Ihe thefts arc petty, but they are hard to detect.” said the Magistrate, who added that it wn.s impossible to meet deliberate offences with a fine. ••On the first, charge accused was sentenced to seven days' imprisonment, and on the second Io fourteen days, the terms to be concurrent.