“FENCE” PUNISHED

Dominion, Volume 23, Issue 73, 19 December 1929, Page 13

“FENCE” PUNISHED

IMPRISONED FOR A YEAR Dominion iai < Christchurch, December 18. John Henry Tolmie was sentenced to twelve months’ imprisonment by Mr. Justice Adams in the Supreme Court this morning. Tolmie had pleaded guilty to a charge of receiving stolen goods knowing them to have been dishonestly obtained. Prisoner had admitted receiving cigarettes from some boys, the cigarettes having been stolen by the boys from the premises of T. H. Green and Co. Pleading for leniency, prisoner said that he had been discharged from the Army in 1918 as medically unfit. Unemployment and a slump in his business had made it difficult to meet his obligations and keep his family. He had been almost 25 years in the country and had never been in trouble before. His Honour said that the prisoner seemed to have, had a good reputation up to the time of the commission of the crime. There was no evidence that this was not the first occasion. The offence, however, was one of a serious nature, and had always been treated as much more serious than the crime of theft itself. Persons like the prisoner were known as “fences,” and provided reasonably safe means of realising the proceeds of thefts, and in thqt way would encourage persons to undertake a career of crime. His Honour said he must pass sentence in keeping with the gravity of the crime. As it was a first offence, although the maximum punishment was seven years, he would impose a sentence of twelve months’ imprisonment, to date from the time of prisoner’s arrest. An order was made for the return of the property now in the hands of the police to the rightful owner.