MAGISTRATE’S COURT

Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 223, 17 June 1936, Page 5

MAGISTRATE’S COURT

Illegal Possession Of Opossum Skins

THEFT OF A WATCH On a charge of illegally possessing three opossum skins, Arthur William Fisher, labourer, aged 32. was fined £2 and costs by Mr. E. D. Mosley, S.M., in the Magistrate's Court, Wellington, yesterday. DetectiVe-Sergcaut L. B. Revell, who prosecuted, said it came to the notice of DetectivesTripney and Hay that defendant was selling opossum skins. His explanation was that be was recently trapping in the South Island. He did not at first know what animals I lie skins represented. He came to Wellington and, being short of money, tried to sell Hie skins.

Mr. Revell pointed out that it. was provided that there was a penalty of £lO for possession of each skin.

The magistrate remarked that there were numerous prosecutions in. the Soutu Island for similar offences. Defendant said he did not know when he tried to sell the skins that he was liable.

Charles Gordon Holland, a labourer, aged 26, was sentenced to a month's imprisonment to be served concurrently on each of two charges involving theft. Hl* pleaded guilty to a charge of stealing a wristlet, watch valued at 30/-, and appeared for sentence on a count of stealing a compass and a blade razor of a total value of £l/3/-. Detective-Sergeant Revell said that ou May 28 Albert Tubert reported that a razor and a compass had been stolen from his room at. an hotel. The articles were found in a pawnshop and were pawned by a man who gave his name as Phillips. He traced the articles to accused. With them lie also found, a watch which Holland admitted stealing. He had been before the court several times.

In answer to the magistrate, accused said he had committed the thefts because he needed food for his wife and himself. The magistrate said there were many agencies in Wellington by which food could be obtained for himself and bis wife. Two years’ detention in a Borstal institution was the sentence imposed on a dressmaker, Helen Mary Dudley, aged 19. who pleaded guilty to being an idle and disorderly person. .