ROBBERIES AND ASSAULT

Hawera Star, Volume LI, 19 June 1931, Page 9

ROBBERIES AND ASSAULT

CRIME AT DUNEDIN. PAIR SENT TO GAOL. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) DUNEDIN, June 18. The final phrase of the .sensational robbery and assault in the jewellery and pawn shop of Walter Rossitter took place in the Supreme Court to-day, when Thomas William Wilson and Rupert Saunders were sentenced by Air. Justice Kennedy. Wilson was sentenced on charges of breaking, entering and theft at the Hudson Fur Company premises of goods valued at £SOO, at the premises of R, S. Black (£450), Dawson and Co., jewellery (£3000), W. J. Paterson, jewellery (£841), assaulting Waller Rossitter and doing grievous bodily harm to Jane Rossitter. His punishment is to. he five years ’imprisonment in all, with one year's reformative detention thereafter.

Saunders, received a sentence of three years’ reformative detention for assaulting Riossitter with intent to rob. the judge remarking that following a drunken bout- lie fell in with Wilson’s suggestions, and his crime was not attended with brutality.

The judge, after reviewing Wilson’s Australian convictions, said he regarded him as a callous, brutal and dangerous criminal. Wj+.hin six months he had stolen goods valued at £4791 and £3860. Th e j ewel lory was still un.recovered, the nroreeds of which most likely he hoped to. enjoy when released. A cru°l. brutal assault on an old man and his wife merited exemplary punishment.