ONCE TOO OFTEN

Evening Star, Issue 20864, 6 August 1931, Page 8

ONCE TOO OFTEN

GAOL FOR FEMALE BAGSNATCHER '[Per United Press ‘ Association.] CHRISTCHURCH, August C. Admitting six charges of tho theft of handbags, involving £3O, Alice Beatrice Tootell, aged thirty-eight, a married woman, was sentenced to six mouths’ imprisonment by the magistrate <Mr Mosley). According to the police, accused was a bag-snatcher who worked to a system, but who tried it once too often. The jvolico said tho woman’s practice was to go to a showroom of a drapery firm and “poke about,” trying on a hat or coat, and wait her chance while someone else was being served. She would then pick up a customer’s bag and make off. She was caught through tendering a cheque at a shop from a bag which she had previously stolen. This cheque had been stopped, so she was apprehended. In many cases the bags were taken from people who could ill* afford to lose them. The woman admitted burning the bags, and keeping tho money. She was married, with five children, and had not been before the court previously.