"TO GET FOOD"

Evening Post, Volume CXV, Issue 62, 15 March 1933, Page 11

"TO GET FOOD"

BROKE SHOP WINDOWS

UNEMPLOYED MAN'S ACT

"I lost my head, and I did something desperate. . I must have been mad— starvation has driven mo that way," said John Male, a labourer, aged G3, in the Magistrate's Court today, to explain his action in breaking six plato glass windows in the premises of the Union Clothing Company, Ltd., Cuba Street, on Friday night. Hearing the sound of breaking glass, a nearby shopkeeper went to the corner of Ghuzneo and Cuba Streets about 10 o'clock, and saw the accused in the act of breaking the last of six plateglass windows in the premises of the Union Clothing Company on the Ghuznee Street side. The accused had a piece of lead piping in his hand, and after breaking the last window he stopped back on to tho footpath and waited until a constable arrived. He was taken, to the Mount Cook Police Station where, in a voluntary statement, ho said that ho was an unemployed labourer. Ho had boein refused sustenance that week because he had not paid his levy, and' he had broken the windows in order to get a "feed." He said he had had only four meals that week. He was quite sober. From the dock the accused, in pleading guilty, reiterated the statement he had made to the police. ' He said he had been paid 7s 6d tho week previously, but on Friday when ho went to the Labour Bureau he had been refused.

Male was committed by Mr. E. Page, S.M., to the Supreme Court for senteneo on a charge of committing mischief .by wilfully breaking the six windows, valued at £158 lGs Gd.