DETECTIVE CURIOUS

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 91, 14 October 1931, Page 10

DETECTIVE CURIOUS

ARREST FOLLOWS

THEFTS CLEARED UP

The resemblance of a man to one for whom the police were looking, and of whom they had a description, prompted Constable T. Smith, of the detective etaff, to question Bernard Victor Cottier in Vivian street one night in Sep» tember. As a result of the constable's inquiries, a number of thefts from houses in the Island Bay, Boseneathy Hataitai, and Mulgrave street districts were cleared up iv the Magistrate's Court to-day. ;

Cottier, who was described as & musician, aged 55, pleaded guilty to three charges of breaking and entering and theft, one charge of breaking and entering with intent to commit theftjf three charges of theft from dwellinghouses; and one charge of attempted; theft'from a dwelling-house.

The evidence showed that in one casei a householder at Island Bay was awakened by an intruder manipulating a casement window. The intruder had a torch in his right hand, and, leaning over the wiudowsill, ho played the light of the torch over an open drawer of .a dressing table. The man ran away; when the owner of the house got out of bed, but as it was a clear moonlight night, the intruder was recognised as the accused. In another instance the accused was getting out of the windovr of a house at Island Bay one afternoon, when the son of.the householder cama in the front gate. Ho chased the accused over several fences, and when! he caught him Cottier returned a handbag which ho had stolen from tho house, making a successful plea to be let go. At a house in Roseneath the accused reached through a widow with! a stick and extracted a handbag. After taking a bag from the bedroom of another Roseneath house he left a fingerprint on the bed, which led to his identification.

Mr. E. Page. S.M., committed the accused to the Supreme Court for sen^ tence.