SERIES OF EXPLOITS

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 142, 17 June 1937, Page 6

SERIES OF EXPLOITS

REMARKABLE STORY

PAIR ARRESTED ON LINER

The story of a scries of escapades which began in Christchurch and ended on the intercolonial steamer Maunganui at Wellington, was told when Harry Joseph Lomax, labourer, aged 21, and Philip Daniel Trainor, labourer, aged 24, appeared before Mr. V. F. Stilwell, S.M., in the Magistrate's Court yesterday on four charges of car conversion, two of breaking and entering, and four of theft.

Detective-Sergeant P. Doyle said that the two accused were to be tried for other offences, including breaking and entering and conversion, at New Plymouth, Auckland, Christchurch, and Timaru. The offences for which they were now before the Court began when they converted a car in Christchurch, drove to Nelson, converted another car there, went on to Blenheim, and there broke into a store. They subsequently crossed to Wellington, converted a car here on May 16, and went to Levin, where they changed number plates with a car of similar type. The converted car was abandoned in a swamp near New Plymouth. The two accused went on to Auckland, where they converted at least one othT car, broke into a store at Helensville, and stole a .22 calibre rifle and 1000 • rounds of ammunition. On May 28 they converted a car in Wellington, broke into a store at Paraparaumu, and then drove into the bush at Akatarawa, where they sorted the stolen goods. They were arrested by Detective S. C. Browne on the Maunganui shortly before she was due to leave for Sydney. Frank Ernest Patchett, tailor and mercer, of Market Street, Blenheim, gave evidence that his shop was broken into on the night of May 14, and that the total value of the stolen money and property was £23 8s 3d.

Harold Charles Sheargold, manager of the Paraparaumu Co-operative Dairy Co., Ltd., said that at 7.30 a.m. on May 27 he found that the front door had been broken open and the shop ransacked. A large quantity of goods was missing. He identified articles produced as articles sold in the shop. The total value of the goods produced was £10 3s lOd. In addition, goods valued at £11 18s lid had not been recovered. The total value of the property stolen was £23 2s. The same night, a quantity of benzine was stolen from the bowser pump, the lock of which w.as broken.

Detective S. C. Browne said that he arrested the accused on May 29 on the steamer Maunganui just prior to the vessel's leaving for Sydney. He interviewed them on May 30 concerning the conversion of a car in Wellington and the store burglary at Paraparaumu. Witness read statements signed by the accused in which they admitted these and i other offences.

They were committed for sentence on nine of the charges to the Supreme Court at Christchurch. On the charge of converting at New ' Plymouth a motor-car valued at £^40, they were remanded to appear at New Plymouth tomorrow.