SENTENCE TO PRISON.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIX, Issue 48, 25 January 1939, Page 5

SENTENCE TO PRISON.

SERIES OF CHARGES,

Per Press Association

HASTINGS, Jan. 24

The finding near Taumarunui of a converted Hastings motor car containing five cases of whisky bought M. \ . Rcrggren into the Magistrate’s Court at Hastings to-day to answer two charges of converting motor cars and two charges of theft. On one of the charges lie was sentenced to one year’s imprisonment and on the second to three months’ imprisonment, the sentences to l>e concurrent; on the two charges of theft be was convicted and ordered to come up for sentence if called upon within 12 months. Detective-Sergeant Revell said Rcrggren was employed in a Public A orks (Yimp in the King Country. One of his mates had been injured and taken to Taumarunui Hospital. On Noveinlier 24 Rcrggren went to the hospital to see him and. finding the man had been discharged, he went on a drinking bout with another man. They took a car from Taumarunui, abandoning it when it ran out of petrol near National Park. On December 28 Rcrggren took another car and drove it to Dannevirke, where he changed the number plates with those on a road grader. He then went'to the King Country where, it was alleged, he stole five cases of whisky from a warehouse. Rcrggren was apprehended near Taumarunui. but escaped into the bush and was finally caught by the police in Christchurch. . Tlie detective-sergeant said Rcrggren had to face charges of breaking and entering, which were to be heard in the Supreme Court. The theft charges arose out of his taking a kit of tools from a car in Rotorua, and the theft of two grader number plates. Rcrggren had a long list 1 of previous convictions. “These charges appear to Ik> cases ol almost, straight-out theft and not ear conversion, ,} the Magistrate (Mr Miller) said to Rcrggren. “You have been before the Court before on many charges of this nature, and 1 must sentence you to imprisonment.” On the charge of stealing five eases

of whisky, valued at £36 15s. the property of Percy Robert McGill, of Rotorua, Rcrggren was remanded to appear on January 27.