CRIME PUNISHED

Evening Post, Volume CXXI, Issue 140, 15 June 1936, Page 10

CRIME PUNISHED

CHRJSTCHURCH CASES

(By Telejiraph—Press Association.!

CHRISTCHURCH, This Day

Two young men, William 'John Davidson and William Malcolm Leitch, were sentenced by Mr. Justice Northcroft in the Supreme Court this morning for breaking into a shop and theft. Davidson was sentenced to twelve months' imprisonment, and Lcitch was placed on probation for two years. It was stated that Davidson had been released from a Borstal insti : tute only last December.

A DIFFICULT CASE. The suggestion that the prisoner suffered from a form of kleptomania was made by the Judge when sentencing Harry Thomas Betts, aged 38 years, for housebreaking and theft <four charges), housebreaking with intent to commit theft (four charges), and attempted housebreaking with intent to commit theft (two charges). Betts was sentenced to three years' hard labour,. .

"Yours is a very difficult case," said his Honour, to Betts. "You are before me for sentence on ten separate charges and have admitted breaking into twenty-four different houses. You have a long list. You have had reformative detention for • three years and recently fifteen months' hard labour. You had only been released when you set out to commit this series of burglaries. They are not of a ds.ngerous character, but rather an aggravated form of sneak thieving. It seems to be a form of kleptomania, but as is ordered at present there is no adequate treatment for. this condition. You cannot harry the community in this way. You will be sentenced to three years' hard labour." Three youths who had committed burglary were each sentenced to three vcar.i' detention m a Borstal institute. They were Cecil Hedley Gilchrist, Winston Mearil Yeatman, and Leslie William Rasmussen.