GUILT ADMITTED

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 77, 28 September 1938, Page 15

GUILT ADMITTED

HOTEL THEFT

THEATRE TAKINGS

Frederick Hilton, a hotel porter, aged 28, pleaded guilty before Mr. J. H. Luxford, S.M., in the Magistrate's Court today to the theft, on September 14, of an attache case containing £48 in cash and ten cheques for sums of money totalling £175 2s lOd. and was committed to the Supreme Court for sentence. The attache case had been deposited at the Hotel St. George for safe keeping on behalf of the proprietor of the Roxy and Paramount Theatres. At one stage of the proceedings the accused collapsed and fell heavily to the floor. He was carried out by detectives, but returned within a few minutes. Detective-Sergeant P. Doyle, who prosecuted, said that the accused wasj employed as a night porter at the! Hotel St. George, and his hours of duty were from 10 p.m. until 7 a.m. Among other duties he had to attend to the lift and to the hall inside the main enhance of the hotel. For the past three years several of the local theatre proprietors had been taking cash to the hotel to be placed in the strongroom in the manager's office for safe keeping. j At about 9.55 o'clock on the even- j ing in question,' Miss Hanson, secretary to the proprietor of the Roxy and Paramount Theatres, called at the hotel with cash and cheques from these theatres. As she entered the hall the accused approached her, took possession of the bag, and went in the direction of the manager's office. At about 10.30 o'clock that night a clerk on duty in the hotel discovered that the lift, of which the accused was in charge, had stopped on the sixth floor and was not operating. A search was made for the accused, who could not be found and on the following morning the strongroom was opened and the bag found to be missing. ARREST AT PALMERSTON NORTH. Detective McPhee made inquiries, and went to the residence of the accused, said Detective-Sergeant Doyle, and discovered that he had left the previous night. Detective McPhee traced him to Palmerston North, where he was located by Detective-Sergeant Meiklejohn, the accused going under an assumed name. The accused bolted from Detective-Sergeant Meiklejohn, and after he was caught it was found that he had the attache case and practically all the money in his possession. Detective N. J. McPhee read a statement in which the accused admitted the offence. He stated that lie had placed the case beside the strongroom and later had placed it in a wastepaper basket and taken it up to the sixth floor. Later he went down the fire escape, spent the rest of the night at another hotel, and next day left for Palmerston North by train. Out: of the money which was in the case he had spent £12 on clothes and food. He did not attempt to cash any of the cheques. It was not until after the attache case was handed to him that he decided to take it. "NOT PREMEDITATED." "The position that money is left in in the hotel is a big temptation to anybody," said the accused, when asked if he had anything to say. "It ought to be locked up as soon as it is brought, in. It was not a premeditated theft. It was done on the spur of the moment. I realise the foolishness of what I have done, and that is why I did not attempt to cash or destroy any of the cheques. I intended to return the cheques, but before doing so I was arrested." After the hearing of evidence the accused pleaded guilty to the charge, and was committed to the Supreme Court for sentence.