PETTY THIEVING.

Horowhenua Chronicle, 19 August 1930, Page 5

PETTY THIEVING.

ACCUSED SENT TO GAOL. As a result of numerous complaints received by r the police from local newspaper agents that newspapers were being taken after delivery, a watch was kept by the police. This morning Constable Grainger arrested William Charles Norman, who was later charged before Messrs T. Brown and P. W. Goldsmith, J. ’s P., with the theft of a newspaper, also two sheets of corrugated Iron, the latter being the property of H. J. Dunford; and 20 lbs. of cream, the property of some unknown person, also with violently resisting the police. Constable Bagrie prosecuted. Constable Grainger giving evidence stated that the police had received numerous complaints from the local newsagents that newspapers were being stolen in different parts of the town. He had kept watch and had seen accused leave his house- at from 5 a.m. to 5.30, a.m. returning later. This morning he had seen him go out and return about 6.20 a.m. He noticed he had a paper which he was reading at his back door. When approached he denied that he had been out and when told that he was under arrest he resisted violently. The iron which had been the subject of a complaint was found on the top of a lean-to at his house.

Constable Bagrie said he had searched accused’s house this morning and had found the iron, also a half kerosene tin of cream standing in a tub of water in the washhouse, the door of which was locked. The cream had been stolen recently. Walter Bull gave, evidence of his paper being missing this morning, while H. J. D'unford identified the iron as Jus property. Accused went into the box denying all the charges. In answer to the Bench he said he was not a cream dealer, but he got milk from farmers for his dogs. In regard to the iron, he said that the plumbers when working on the shed had left the iron there. Asked how he accounted for the cream, he said that he had skimmed it off the skim milk. He asked that the Court treat him leniently. The charges having been proved Constable Bagrie asked for a substantial penalty —pointing out that petty thefts were hard to detect.

The Bench found accused guilty on the four charges, sentencing him to one month’s imprisonment for theft of the iron; fourteen days on each charge of stealing the newspaper and cream, and two months for resisting the police, the sentences to be cumulative, a total of four months’ imprisonment.