BURGLARS SENTENCED.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIX, Issue 18051, 28 March 1922, Page 6

BURGLARS SENTENCED.

RAILWAY STATION THEFT.

STYE YEARS' IMPRISONMENT [bt klboeaph.—press association.] MASTERTON. Monday.

At the Supreme Court on Saturday Eric Malcolm Biel and Percy Marton Carmichael were sentenced to five years' imprisonment each on a charge of having broken and entered the Paekakariki railway refreshment rooms on or about the night .of January 7, and stolen then from a safe containing 127 sovereigns, £51 in silver, and sundry documents, of a total value of £204, the, property of Thomas Fraser Thompson, of Hawera.

John Hunt, a plain-clothes constable, stationed at the Detective Office, Wellington, said that on January 21 last lie searched the Moonshine Road where the creek crossed it, between the Elutt and Pahautanm. In a creek, about half a chain down the 6lope, below the road, he found the safe, covered with fern and rubbish. When ha lifted the rubbish off be found the safe had been blown open. The safe produced was the one he found, being numbered 54786. A coffee tin was in the safe, and alongside was a tyrelever. There was a quantity of a soft white powder in the doorway at tho bottom. A small piece of spent fuse was found underneath the door of the safe, H« also found a two shilling piece. There was also a small note and a collarette. On the road near the spot where the safe was found wa ß an oil patch about Isin. wide. The track down to the safe was smoothed, as if someone had bean climbing up and down. The conviction of the accused was tnainly due to statement* made by them More and after th* robbery