GIVEN A CHANCE

Evening Post, Volume CV, Issue 121, 24 May 1928, Page 12

GIVEN A CHANCE

PRISONER LENIENTLY TREATED (By Telegraph.) (Special to "The Evening* Post.") . DUNEDIN, This Day. "Tho prisoner is anxious to work and givo a fair return for tho wages paid to him, and such a man deserves to bo encouraged in these days," said Mr. Justice Sim in the Supreme Court, in" sentencing Stanley Burton Robertson to three years' probation for making a false document. On behalf of the prisoner, Mr. White said that Robertson was twenty-, six years of- age. - The report of -the Probation Officer showed that at tho age of fourteen years the prisoner was placed in tho Weraroa Training Farm. He was an orphan. When he was nineteen years of age ho received his first sentenco of imprisonment for theft, being sent to gaol for fourteen, days. After that he was convicted four or fivo times for petty theft. Drink had been his trouble". In the present caso ho was arrested at Taumarunui for being intoxicated while in charge of a. car, and ho was now serving a sentence of three months' imprisonment for theft of camp equipment. Somo months ago he wont to the North Island, where he had been doing exceptionally well. He was one of, five men who opened up a coal mine there, in which he held fifty shares. At present £50 or £.60 was •duo to him by way of bonuses ■ and other payments. His Honour said the Probation Officer in tho district from which the prisoner came wa_ against tho granting of probation. It was in the prisoner's favour that he was not afraid of hard work, and his Honour therefore proposed to act on the suggestion of the Probation Officer in Dunedin, and give him a chance. "It is desirable to point out to, the prisoner," continued his Honour, "that his previous convictions have qualified him for declaration as an habitual criminal, so! that it is going far to release him upon probation."