THEFT FROM LETTER.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20302, 9 July 1929, Page 14

THEFT FROM LETTER.

MAGISTRATE GRANTS PROBATION

POSTAL OFFICIAL'S LAPSE

"The circumstances of this case, apart from tho fact that accused was a postal official, show that tho offence was a very trivial one," said Mr. Smyth, when Thomas Matthew Reginald Walter Moore, a postal messenger, was charged in tho Police Court yesterday with stealing a postal packet, containing postal notes for 5s and 2s, tho property of tho PostmnsterGeneral.

Mr. Smyth, who appeared for accused, asked that the charge, which was an indictable offence, should be reduced to ono of theft, which could bo dealt with summarily. Accusod had taken the two postal notes from an envelope which was open, cashing one and burning tho other. '1 ho theft had been committed while accused was taking letters from tho dcadlotter office to the mail room. Accused was only a fow months over 18. Chicf-Dctectivo Hammond, agreeing, tho magistrate, Mr. F. K. Hunt, reduced tho charge accordingly. Mr. Hammond said Moore removed two notes from an envelope, and later cashed ono ovor the counter of another post office, after having signed the name of another messenger to il The signature was do tccted by the post ofneo officials, as it was not tho samo as tho usual signature of tho man whose namo was signed. Accused, who came from a respectable family, and had never been in trouble before, had lost his position in tho post office. Tho magistrate admitted accused to probation for two years.