THEFT OF WALLET

Evening Star, Issue 25941, 5 November 1946, Page 6

THEFT OF WALLET

YOUNG MAN'S RUSE

Effecting a disguise by wearing a shade over one eye, Dugald McAlpine Watson (31), a married man, of Broad Bay, obtained .by a ruse a wallet containing £l9 by claiming that it was his own. Watson, a moulder, pleaded guilty in the Police Court to-day to the theft of the money, and was remanded for sentence on bail of '£2s by Mr J. D. Willis, S.M., until to-morrow morning for a report by the probation officer (Mr E. F. Mosley). A butcher named Joseph John Hellyer, of Mornington, lost -the wallet, and it was found by a small boy and handed to a storekeeper in thp district, said Chief-detective T. Y. Hall. There being no claimant for the money, the wallet was handed to the boy’s grandparents. . The circumstances of the finding of the wallet were related at the foundry where the accused was employed, said Mr Hall, and Watson obtained time off from his work, purchased an eye shade from a chemist, and proceeded to the house •where the wallet had been taken by the boy. To the woman at the house tho accused described the wallet and the amount it contained on the strength of what he had heard at his work, and was handed the £l9 and the wallet. When interviewed by detectives Watson admitted his theft. In the meantime he had spent £lO. Both the accused and his wife (who ■ had repaid the sum spent) were working, and the Chief Detective said that there was no need for Watson to have taken the wallet. This was a case of an overindulgence of liquor unbalancing the accused, said Mr C. G. Gray, who represented him. Counsel added that lie was suffering from nervous trouble following two years’ service in the Pacific, and was now in receipt of a pension. Watson, had had not been before the court before, was flow willing to' take out a prohibition order. Counsel asked the magistrate to consider forbidding publication of the name.