MAXIMUM PENALTY.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIV, Issue 304, 21 November 1934, Page 8

MAXIMUM PENALTY.

TWO YOUTHS SENTENCED. WANGANUI, Nov. 21. Three months’ imprisonment, the maximum allowed by the. law for an offence of tin's nature, was the sentence imposed upon William Burton and Richard Pearce, who were convicted by Mr J. H. Salmon, S.M., at Wanganui yesterday of having unlawfully converted a motor car to their own use. The car was owned by Elizabeth McIntyre, at Mangaonoho, and was valued at £SOO. The men were arrested at .Wanganui on Monday as a result of a description of the vehicle being broadcast by wireless. Detective J. Walsh said that accused had driven from Wellington to Mangaonoho on-Satui’day night in a stolen car, which they had abandoned before taking Mrs Mclntyre’s car. The pair then drove off to Hihitahi, and on to Ohakune, after which they doubled back to Karioi and came to Wanganui via the Wangaehu Valley. Burton, who was 20 years of age, had been sent to the Borstal Institute in 1930 after he had been convicted at Wellington of theft, breaking and entering. In 1931, at Palmerston North, he had been sentenced to three years at the Borstal Institute for another offence. Pearce, alias Revell, was aged 21, and had been convicted of theft in 1931, for which he had also been sent to Borstal. Accused were remanded until November 29 on a charge of breaking and entering a shop at Hihitahi.