KLEPTOMANIA?

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 24, 29 January 1924, Page 6

KLEPTOMANIA?

SHOP-LIFTER PROSECUTED.

"VVe all know that kleptomania is a covering for the lapses of the richer classes, but there is no reason why a difference should be made between the w4 y T *nd the P°or>" remarked Mr. V\. k. .Leicester, appearing for a married woman named Lena Daly, who was charged at the Magistrate's Court this morning with the theft of a black cloth overall, valued at 4s lid, from Jameß Smith, Ltd. Senior-Detective Cameron, who conducted the prosecution, stated that the accused went to a sale at the complainant s shop yesterday, and made a purchase, and when she was about to leave, she picked up the overall and concealed it in her bag. Her action was noticed and she was taken to the office, where the article was recovered. She had bean before the Court for a similar offence in September, and had been fined £2. . Counsel for the defendant said that the defendant had a comfortable home her husband was in regular employment, and she had no debts or financial worries. She and her children were church-going people. He suggested that kleptomania was responsible for the offence. She had made a purchase, and as a sort of unauthorised discount. had taken the apron worth 4s lid. She had not known that she had actually taken it, till she was accosted, when she offered to pay for it. She was just completing a term of probation. For the sake of her chil-, dren, and m view of her appearance in' Court, which she felt seriously, he urged the Magistrate to make an order for the suppression of her name. ■The Magistrate (Mr. E. Page,. S.M.} said he would make no such order. He remanded the accused, in custody till to-morrow morning for sentence. '