HASTINGS COURT

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XXIII, Issue 102, 11 April 1933, Page 7

HASTINGS COURT

(Before Messrs Foster Brook and A. Rosenberg, J.P.’s.) THEFT ADMITTED. A man whose name was ordered to be suppressed, -was charged with, on April 5, at Hastings, stealing a pair of horse pads valued at 255, the property of A. P. Maguire. He pleaded guilty. Plain-clothes Constable B. Dunn said that the complainant left the goods on a trough at the Hastings racecourse, and shortly afterwards they had disappeared. Later they were found in a second-hand dealer’s shop, having been sold bv the accused, who admitted that he had given a fictitious name to the second-hand dealer. The accused was a married man in poor circumstances and living apart from his wife. He had not been in trouble before. The accused said he was selling other goods of his own and found the pads, which he included so as to get “a few bob.” The reason given for having used a fictitious name was that he did not want, people to know. “You have no right to make a few bob at another man’s expense,” said the Bench. “You aro old enough to know better. If we treat you too leniently it will not deter others from committing a similar offence. However, we will give you the benefit on the understanding that you make restitution and you will be ordered to conic up for sentence if called upon.”