CAUGHT BY A TRAP.

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XIII, Issue 256, 13 October 1923, Page 5

CAUGHT BY A TRAP.

RIFLING A LETTER BOX. BOY PLEADS GUILTY. A trap laid by tho postal authorities was the means by which a fifteen-year-old boy .was caught rifling a private letter box at the Napier Post Office yesterday about 12 o’clock. He pleaded guilty at the Napier Magistrate’s Court this morning to stealing a cheque for £8 13/10, the property of Mary Ellen Kirk, and was remanded till Friday next. The police stated that there were several other charges pending. The owner of th© box concerned had beeh missing private correspondence, cheques, etc., for nearly five weeks. The matter was reported to the police, who, together with the postal authorities. laid a trap. On Thursday evening an electric bell was fixed to the box in such a way that it would ring when the Box was opened. Th© bell began to ring shortly after midday yesterday .and an officer in the mail room opened the slide of the enclosure and saw the bby standing at the box with a bundle of letters in his hand. He called out to him tho wait a minute, but th© boy dropped the letters and made for the street. Several postal officials, however, were upon him before he could get very far,. A cheque for £8 13/10 was found upon him. On Wednesday last, several letters addressed to the owner of the box were found torn up in a public convenience near the Post Office. Inquiries revealed that the letters had never reached the addressee, who stated that she had lost one of her keys by leaving it in th© box about five weeks ago. When arrested yesterday " the boy confessed that he had taken the key out of th© box. which he had cleared regularly for some time. Letters of purely a confidential nature, he said, he destroyed, but those containing money he kept.. Several postal notes had been cashed, besides pound notes and a cheque.