THEFTS ADMITTED

Evening Post, Volume CXXII, Issue 133, 2 December 1936, Page 13

THEFTS ADMITTED

PLEA OF DESTITUTION

"These are a mean type of theft," said Detective-Sergeant L. B. Revell, when Maxwell Joseph Daniel Byford, a labourer, aged 33, appeared before Mr, Raymond Ferner, S.M., in the Magistrate's Court today, charged with the theft of £5, the property of Alfred Norman Inwood, and of 3s 6d, the property of George Rookes. Detective-Sergeant Revell explained that, knowing the accused to be destitute, one of the complainants invited him to occupy a room in thecomplainant's house. A sum of £5 went missing, and when inquiries were made by Detective J. G. Long, the accused admitted taking the money, and spending most of it at pakapoo. Previously he and the other complainant had occupied a room at the Hutt, from where the 3s 6d was taken. Mr. R. Hardie Boys, who appeared for the accused, explained that the two men at the Hutt had kept a joint sum of money in a tobacco tin for the purchase of milk, etc. The accused committed a technical theft when he took 3s 6d from the tin for a trip to town. The other theft was committed when the accused was destitute. He had been in custody eight days, and had only one small previous conviction. The accused was convicted and ordered to come up for sentence if called upon within three months on the first charge, a condition being the repayment of the £5 within two weeks. He was fined £2 on the second count.