BRUTAL CRIMINAL

Dominion, Volume 24, Issue 225, 19 June 1931, Page 11

BRUTAL CRIMINAL

Dunedin Burglaries WILSON’S RECORD Assault on Old Man & Wife By Telegraph—Press Association. Dunedin, June 18. In the Supreme Court this morning, Thomas William Wilson and Rupert Saunders were sentenced by Mr. Justice Kennedy. Wilson was dealt with on charges of breaking and entering the premises of the Hudson Fur Company and stealing goods valued at £500; the premises of R. S. Black, and stealing goods valued at £450; the premises of Dawson and Co., and stealing jewellery valued at £3000; the premises of W. J. Paterson and stealing jewellery valued at £841; and with assaulting Walter G. Rossiter and doing grievous bodily harm to Jane Rossiter. He was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment in all, with one year’s reformative detention thereafter. Saunders received a sentence of three years’ reformative detention for assaulting Rossiter with intent to rob. His Honour remarked that, following drunken bouts, Saunders fell in with Wilson’s suggestions, and his crime was not attended with brutality. After .reviewing Wilson’s Australian convictions, his Honour said he regarded him as a callous, brutal, and dangerous criminal. Within six months he had stolen goods valued at £4791, and £3BOO worth of jewellery was still unrecovered, the proceeds of which,, most likely, he hoped to enjoy when released. He committed a cruel, brutal assault on an old man and his wife, and merited exemplary punishment.