SHIP’S OFFICER STEALS WOMEN'S UNDERCLOTHING

Evening Star, Issue 26155, 17 July 1947, Page 8

SHIP’S OFFICER STEALS WOMEN'S UNDERCLOTHING

demanded until to-day, when lie appeared in the Oity Police Court yesterday morning on charges of stealing women’s underclothing and silk stockings, Bernard Miles Postleth waite, aged 30, the second, officer on the vessel Derrycunihy, committed similar offences yesterday afternoon: Facing three charges this morning, ’ Postlethwaite was convicted on the first by Mr J.. 1). Willis, S.M., ,and ordered to pay witnesses! expenses of £2, convicted and. fined £1 10s on the second, and ordered to pay witnesses’ expenses, 11s, aud, oh- the other charge, convicted and fined £ls. . The magistrate ordered that the recovered property be returned to the owners. , Chief-detective T. Y. Hall said that the offences for which the accused was charged yesterday morning had been committed on July 7. The accused bad been remanded until to-day. At 2.30 yesterday afternoon, the accused was discovered in suspicious circumstances in the Grand Hotel, Mr Hall said, and it was found that he had ransacked at least three rooms at Wain’s Hotel. Postlethwaite had articles' of women’s underclothing in his pocket, and more were found hidden in a lavatory. The accused had been acting in a stupid manner, Mr Hall said, On July 2, he had been arrested in Lyttelton on similar charges. Mr J. P. Ward, who appeared for the accused, said that this strange and unusual case was a medical matter rather than one for the courts. Recently the accused had had a strong desire to dress up as a woman. . Postlethwaite had been 14 years at sea, and had served all through the war. Pie held a master mariner’s ticket. Passing sentence, the magistrate said that he proposed to inflict fines, but he would have, imposed imprisonment if it were not for the facts that the accused’s presence was desired on the ship, which was due to 1 leave New Zealand to-morrow, and that lie was not likely to return to this country. IMPRISONMENT FOR THEFT. - John Francis Harnett, a painter aged 26, was charged with stealing tlie sum of £2, and a postal note to the value of 6s, the ; property of Gladys lsobol Olsen, and clothing to the value of £4 9s, the property of Robert Stewart Wilson Campbell. On another charge of failing to observe the terms of probation, Harnett was remanded to appear gt Christchurch on July 25. . , Constable G. W. Golding said that the accused admitted the' charge when interviewed. Harnett had had previous 1 convictions for theft. Harnett was sentenced to two months imprisonment with hard labour on the first charge, and one month with hard labour on the second, the sentences to be cumulative.