BOYS' ESCAPADES

Evening Post, Issue 82, 6 April 1936, Page 18

BOYS' ESCAPADES

OFFENCES ADMITTED

A series of escapades culminating in the conversion of a car and a drive from Wellington to Dannevirke was described in the Magistrate's Court and later in the Children's Court on Saturday before Mr. J. H. Luxford, S.M., when a boy of 17 years and 9 months pleaded guilty to four charges. iHe was charged with converting a car to his own use, stealing a crowbar, rope, hook, and cap from a motorlorry, breaking a pane of glass in the window of a city building, and stealing 21 keys and a brush from the premises. Detective-Sergeant L. B. Bevell said that the youth had been arrested by Detective W. Ritchie on March 25 for breaking and entering the premises of C. and A. Odlin and Co. at Petone. He had appeared before the Court and had been committed to the Boys' Home. On March 30 he left the home, and stole a motor-car, with which he reached Dannevirke, where he was arrested. Further inquiries had revealed other depredations he had made. . Another boy, aged 16, appeared in the Children's Court and pleaded guilty to accompanying the older boy on some of his escapades. DetectiveSergeant Bevell said that three clocks and two coats had been stolen from the timber company's premises. When the man with whom the elder boy was staying threatened to report the matter to the police, the boy persuaded the younger one to throw them into the harbour. The elder boy's father-was an elderly man living in Australia, and his mother was.dead. The younger came from quite a good family in Wellington. "I thought when the older boy was brought before me in the Magistrate's Court this morning," said the Magistrate, "that what he needed was a term in a Borstal institution." Addressing the boy, he said: "You are laying the foundation of being adjudged a hardened young criminal. You have to choose between spending your life in and out of gaols or of leading a decent existence. It hurts me to see a young fellow go wrong." The boy was committed to the care of the superintendent of the Boys' Home. To the other, the Magistrate said that his trouble was evidently a lack of responsibility, and that he had been very foolish. He was put under the supervision of the Child Welfare Officer for 12 months. Bestitution was ordered on such terms as the officer should direct.