PROVED GROUNDLESS

Dominion, Volume 33, Issue 302, 16 September 1940, Page 9

PROVED GROUNDLESS

Suspicions Of Sabotage In Boot Factory

CHRISTCHURCH CASE Dominion Special Service. CHRISTCHURCH, September 14. /Suspicions of sabotage in a city boot, factory recently proved groundless when investigated by the police. At this morning’s sitting of the Children’s Court, when a 15-year-old boy was charged with wilfully damaging four pairs of boots, thereby commiting mischief, Detective S. W. Cunningham said he had received assistance concerning the case from the detectivesergeant iu charge of alien investigation.

Evidence showed that hundreds of boots had been damaged, but Detective Cunningham said that his inquiries had convinced him that the boy had acted entirely on his own and without prompting from anybody outside the factory. Some of the boots damaged were being made for the arnjy. Detective Cunningham read a statement in which the boy said he deliberately damaged the 'boots. He could not explain what he had done. He had no grudge against the firm, and nobody told him to damage the boots. Huge Number Handled.

The managing director of the firm said the boy handled about 1100 pairs of boots a day, and pulled six tacks out of each. Scratches on the boots, alleged to be done by the boy, reduced the value by about 7/6. The factory foreman said the boy could not be relied on unless under supervision. He was present when the boy admitted wilfully damaging the boots. Other boys be had seen tackpulling had not damaged the boots in the way complained of. While the boy was employed some hundreds of boots were damaged. The boy was not over-worked.

The boy’s father said the words “wilful destruction,” which witnesses said were words his son uttered, were never used by the boy. He considered that the 1100 pairs a day mentioned was very conservative. He considered it possible that the damage was done by accident. The boy said he had not damaged the boots wilfully, but the trouble had been due to carelessness.

Detective-Sergeant J. McClurg, who prosecuted, eaid that for nine months the boy had worked without causing a great deal of damage and then, in two months, hundreds of boots were damaged. The boy was placed under the supervision of the Child Welfare Officer for IS months, and his parents were ordered to make restitution of 30/-.