PILFERING FROM SHIP

Evening Star, Issue 25716, 13 February 1946, Page 9

PILFERING FROM SHIP

COMPANY MANAGER AS RECEIVER A GAOL PENALTY (P.A.) WELLINGTON, Feb. 12. Pilfering from ship's cargoes was insidious and rampant, it was calculated and premeditated, and consequently all the more serious, said Mr Justice Finlay in the Supreme Court to-day, when he sentenced Walter Leslie Kilner, aged 45, a company manager, to six months' imprisonment with hard labour for receiving a quantity of dress material stolen from an overseas ship. He did not profess to judge who promoted the scheme, said His "Honour, but there was a breach of trust on the part of members of the crew, and the prisoner collabora- j ted. I Pilfering was a serious offence, in- j volving great public loss, and unless j there were receivers there would be no pilfering. All that argued a substantial sentence, but he was very conscious of the grievous loss the iprisoner : had brought upon himself, beside which | anything the court might do was I minor. One was bound to take into ac- j count the prisoner's previous high character and the good work he had done in the public interest during the war. The sentence would have to ho j such as to give him a ohance to re- j habilitate himself. i