COURT NEWS

Grey River Argus, 12 September 1940, Page 3

COURT NEWS

THEFT FROM MARKETING DEPARTMENT. WELLINGTON, September 11. An accidental loss of £44, followed by a period of unsuccessful endeavour to make it up, was given by Abel Kerr Edie, 46, salesman, in a statement to the police, to-day, why he stole £465 19s from the Internal Marketing Department, by whom he was employed. He pleaded guilty to a charge of theft, and was committed to the Supreme Court for sentence. Edie’s statement said that his round covered the eastern suburbs and the Hutt Valley, and he collected from customers about £l5O daily. In December, 1939, he lost £44. He worried about that and did not say anything to the Department, as he was afraid he would lose his job. He thought that by gambling on races and playing poker, he might recover the loss[ He took other money, and lost it at gambling. He began drinking, and this went on till last month, when he found himself £5OO short.

DETENTION FOR ARSON. CHRISTCHURCH, September 11. “I can only take the view that you are a social nuisance of a particularly dangerous type,” said Mr Justice Northcroft, in the Supreme Court, today, in sentencing Robert Henry Butcher, single, 40, to three years’ reformative detention on a charge of arson. ' Counsel said that Butcher was subnormal, but medical opinion did not consider him suitable for an asylum.