"TOO FREQUENT"

Evening Post, Volume CXXVII, Issue 33, 9 February 1939, Page 8

"TOO FREQUENT"

CONVERSION OFFENCES "These cases are getting far too' frequent. People' don't seem to care with whose property they interfere," said Mr. J. L. Stout, S.M., in the Magistrate's Court yesterday, entering a conviction on each of two charges against Maurice Arman Kjar, a lorrydriver, aged 22, and Douglas Paltridge, a- steward, aged 27, unlawful conversion of motor vehicles. The accused, who were represented by Mr. F. W. Ongley, denied both charges, but after hearing evidence the Magistrate accepted the police case. The inference was, he said, that the accused wanted some conveyance to take Kjar out to a military camp. The only, way to put down this type of offence was to impose terms of imprisonment. The accused were each sentenced to one month's imprisonment on each charge, sentences to be concurrent. The evidence called by Sub-Inspec-tor D. J. O'Neill disclosed that the occupant of a lower flat in Aro Street heard the starter of a car going oui> side his residence at about 12.30 a.m. on February 3, and saw two men in the car belonging to the tenant of the upstairs flat. He roused the upstairs tenant, and they went across the road and accosted the men, who had just left the car. The men walked away, j and the tenants then dressed, got in a, car, and went out to look for the men. They picked up two policemen, and later found the accused in Vivian Street with a motor-cycle which they were pushing. The accused were charged with converting the car and the motor-cycle. Mr. Ongley, after the Magistrate had signified his intention to convict, submitted that the offences were more in the nature of mischief than any intention to convert the cars'. The two young men had been drinking. A further charge of theft of a rearvision mirror, preferred against the accused, was dismissed.