BREAKING AND ENTERING

Evening Star, Issue 20672, 20 December 1930, Page 15

BREAKING AND ENTERING

YOUNG MAN SENT TO BORSTAL MILBURN SHOP ENTERED BY NIGHT Gordon Jenkins, twenty-one years of ago, appeared before His Honour Mr Justice Kennedy in the Supremo Court this morning for sentence on a charge of breaking and entering by night the shop of Mary L, O’Keefe, at Milburh, and stealing goods, money, and letters of a value of £8 6s 9d. Mr C. J. L. White, who appeared for tho prisoner, said that Jenkins was a single man who had been more or less the victim of unfortunate domestic cir cumstanccs. His mother died when he 'was cloven, she having been divorced from his father some years before. The father W'ent away, and lie had not seen him since. Tho prisoner, who was hi homes for some time, attended the .Technical School, and did well at engineering. For some time ho was in employment, but about three and a-half years ago ho became mixed up with an older boy in a criminal escapade, there being tho theft of a bicyclo and breaking and entering. Ho was sentenced to five years in the Borstal Institution and was there till March of this year. Three or four weeks ago ho contomolatcd buying a motor cycle, but after a dispute with his employer ho stole a motor cycle and made his way to Dun edin, tho present oH'cnce aud other crimes being committed on the way. Learned counsel said ho realised that the prisoner must bo sent to some institution, but he submitted that as the boy was more or less of a waif ho was entitled to more consideration than the boy who had the advantages of a homo life ana tho care of* a mother and father, H

Tbo Crown Prosecutor (Mr F. B. Adams) said that for ten years the boy was in the charge of institutions, and could hardly have been damaged very much by domestic circumstances. At seventeen lie gob into trouble, and while discharged on license ho committed the present offences. On the other charges lie would in duo course be tried in Invercargill. The offence could hardly ho said to bo the more spontaneous offence ot a youth who saw an opening, but was systematic and planned burglary. His Honour said that the prisoner had broken his probationary license by his almost immediate reversion to crime. The prisoner was to come bei'oro the court on other charges, and it it appeared ho had committed them they might bo properly dealt with by way of cumulative sentences if that appeared to ho the proper course. -There appeared, in any event, no other course hut to order the return of the prisoner to a place of detention. lie would he sentenced to be detained in the Borstal institution for a period of two years.