EXPENSIVE WORK

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 11, 12 July 1930, Page 11

EXPENSIVE WORK

ELECTRICITY STOLEN

•'NOT AN ODD GASE:

An attempt by Henry Albert Bush to obtain cheap electricity had a result which he apparently did not anticipate, for bis ingenious efforts only led to liis appearance before -Mr. E. Page, S.M., in the Magistrate's Court, where he was heavily fined on charges of doing electrical wiring -work without a licence, tampering with an electric meter, and stealing electricity.

Bush, for whom Mr. W. E. Leicester appeared, admitted the first charge, but pleaded not guilty to the other two. Mr. J. Lockie, the assistant City Solicitor, prosecuted.

Mr. Lockie said that the defendant's house at 135, - Coromandel street, was disconnected, after - several waruiiigs, on lltli March on account of failure to pay au account. The disconnection was carried out between the insulator outside the house and the entrance point of the wire into the house, which was closed at the time. On 20th May a woman who lived in a bach at the back of the house of the defendant, and who got her eleetrie power through the Bush's meter, complained that she was not getting power to her house, and next day an electrician visited her place, and whilo trying to find the fault, saw that where the disconnection had taken place the wire had now been reconnected. As he could not get access to. Bush's house to see the meter, the electrician requested the lady at the back to see whether he could get in. On 29th May he went to Bush's place and examined the meter, and traced the fault to a break in the line between the two houses. He reported the connection to the main supply outside Bush's house. Two other electricians went to Bush's place on 14th June, and on examining the meter they found a hook of wire connected between the terminal which took |he current into the meter and one which took it out. This had the effect of shunting the current across the meter, thus preventing a considerable flow of electricity through the meter, although not eliminating it altogether. Attached to this wire was a piece of cotton, which, it was suggested, would enable anyone walking through the hall, say for the purpose of answering the front door, to pull the shunt away. After evidence along these linos had been given, Mr. Leicester submitted that the evidence fell short of proving the charge. Bush, he said, would not be vicariously liable for the criminal acts of his children unless' he authorised them to be done, or -subsequently knew they had been done. All the prosecution had done was to throw a suspicion that Bush had put the shunt there.

JBush, in evidence, denied all knowledge of the. shunt in tho meter. He joined the cut wire outside because he thought it was broken. ,

Mr. Page said that the defendant said that he knew nothing about the shunt in the meter, and he could not suggest who had put it there, "I think everything points to tho defendant being the man," said the Magistrate. "I find it impossible to believe on the facts adduced here that tho work could have been done by anyone else, and I propose to convict him ou both charges. . . . There is some doubt as to Whether he got any benefit from the shunt, because it did not actually reach the terminal.

"It is not an odd ease," said Mr. Lockie when dealing with the question of penalty. "A lot of it goes on, but it is hard to detect. In this case we were lucky." ' :

The defendant was fined £10 on the charge of doing the work without a licence, and £2 on each of the other charges. He was also ordered to pay the costs, amounting to £4 12s. The Magistrate allowed him to pay the fines off at the rate of £1 a week.