MOTOR-CYCLE THEFT

Evening Post, Volume CXXII, Issue 99, 23 October 1936, Page 11

MOTOR-CYCLE THEFT

YOUNG MAN GUILTY

SPECIAL CIRCUMSTANCES

"In view of the peculiar circumstances of your birth and upbringing, I am going to be more lenient with you than I would otherwise be," said Mr. E. D. Mosley, S.M., in the Magistrate's Court today, when George Henry Gordon Lane, a factory assistant, aged 23, appeared before him pleading guilty to three charges in connection with a stolen motor-cycle.

Mr. R. Hardie Boys appeared for Lane, who was charged with the theft on August 1 of a motor-cycle, valued at £25, the property of John Robert Sullivan, wjith affixing a wrong number to a motor-cycle, and with using a cycle on Breaker Bay Road without a licence. Detective-Sergeant L. B. Revell said that on October 18 a traffic inspector examined a motor-cycle in the Wgahauranga Gorge. As a result of his inquiry he informed Detectives Smeaton and Hogan, who found that the engine belonged to a machine which had been stolen some time before. Tho detectives subsequently interviewed the accused, • who admitted having stolen a machine, and explained that he had built up two motor-cycles out of the parts of the one he had stolen and other parts. The cycle of which he had possession was not registered, and was carrying the registration plates of another machine.

Mr. Boys outlined the circumstances of the accused's upbringing since he was about 10 years old. At the age of 14 or 15, being left, with the rest of a young family, by his mother, he went to work. He lapsed on several occasions, but had worked at his present job for seven years without a break, and his employer was willing to testify as to the accused's worth as a worker. His earnings to a large extent kept the younger children and the grandmother, who was a Sioux Indian.

Detective-Sergeant Revell said that the stolen machine was reassembled by the owner and the accused, and that no damage had been done., The accused was ordered to come up for sentence if called upon within two years on the first charge, and was convicted and ordered to pay costs on the other two.