TROUBLESOME GERMAN.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19503, 6 December 1926, Page 14

TROUBLESOME GERMAN.

BURGLARY AND ARSON. SEVEN YEARS" IMPRISONMENT. QUESTION OF REPATRIATION. [BY TELEGRAPH.—OWN CORRESPONDENT.] CHRISTCHURCH, Saturday. "I would bo glad to send him back to Germany," said Mr. Justice Stringer in tho Supreme Court to-day when sentencing Rudolph Kreft, a young German, to seven years' imprisonment for breaking and entering and theft and arson at Kaiapoi. Kreft and Albert Henry Gordon were concerned in a burglary escapade at Kaiapoi on November 24. Kreft pleaded guilty to that offence and also to arson. To-day Gordon was admitted to probation for two years, his father being asked to enter into a bond for £IOO for his good behaviour during the probation period. Mr. Gresson, who appeared for Gordon, said that Kreft was responsible for a good deal of the crime. His Honor: It seems that Gordon has drifted into the very undesirable company of Kreft, who seems to have gone about the country sotting fire to places arid acting in an irresponsible way. The Crown solicitor said that Kreft was not normal. The nature of the crimes showed that, but he was responsible for his actions. He had been in Kaiapoi for about two years. "I don't know how to speak, sir," said Kreft when asked if he had anything to say. His Honor said that Kreft had not been long in New Zealand and that he would be glad to send him back to Germany. He could lock him up for the rest of his life under the Act, but was loth to inflict such a penalty without the prisoner being represented by counsel. The case was adjourned while the probation officer, Mr. F. Rule, conferred with Kreft. "He thinks quite well in German," reported Mr. Rule, "but cannot express himself in English. He did not understand every word I said to him but is capable of deciding his own actions and is responsible for them. He says that Gordon, by suggesting and talking a lot about setting fire to nouses, was responsible for him committing the offences'" The Judge: I do not believe the latter part of the story, for he is of a type distinctly different from Gordon. He will be given a substantial teim of imprisonment and the Prisons Board can investigate the case more thoroughly later and decide th<* question of repatriation.