WESTFIELD HOLD-UP;

Dominion, Volume 22, Issue 120, 14 February 1929, Page 12

WESTFIELD HOLD-UP;

“AMATEURS IN CRIME” THE OFFENDERS SENTENCED Dominion Special Service. Auckland, February IS. Described by His Honour Mr. Justice Blair, as “amateur highwaymen,” the two men concerned in the Westfield hold-up who, equipped with revolvers and masks stopped a car-load of jockeys and a lady returning from the Te Kuiti races early one morning, stood in the dock in the Supreme Court this morning to hear their sentence. David McKenzie Stewart, alias Stoner (aged 27), and Roy Patrick Kitching, alias Newman (aged 20), were the men, and both had pleaded guilty to attempted robbery under arms. Stewart had also admitted obtaining money by false pretences. Both prisoners were sentenced to one year’s reformative detention on the attempted robbery under arms charge, and Stewart was sentenced to a further six months on the charge of obtaining money by false ■ pretences. In making his plea on behalf of Kitching, Mr. W. H. Cocker said the affair had certain Gilbertian touches. Both prisoners were thoroughly frightened, .and they allowed several cars to pass before they had the courage to hold one up. The shooting Was entirely accidental. Mr. Leary, for Stewart, describing the hold-up, said their procedure was the weakest imaginable. They blocked the road at Westfield with a “Stop, Look Out for the Engine” sign, and a hurricane lamp. Several motorists amid many maledictions, managed to pass it. " “I have; very carefully considered the-representations of counsel,” said His Honour, in passing the sentences mentioned above. “The case is not one in which I can grant probation. I think both men ■ were amateurs in crime, and did It more or less on the spur of the moment, but from the point of view of the people held up, It was a premediated - attempt at highway robbery. I propose to give you both terms of reformative detention, .but even then I have some doubt whether I am not too lenient. ?,You both require a sharp lesson, and I would :be falling in my duty if I did not give it to you;”