GAOL FOR SHOPLIFTER.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20495, 21 February 1930, Page 16

GAOL FOR SHOPLIFTER.

MARRIED WOMAN SENTENCED

THEFT OF FIVE FROCKS

QUESTION OF RESTITUTION

"I am 'going fo ho consistent with my sentences, otherwise there is no telling where this sort of thing may lead to," said Mr. F. Iv. Hunt, S.M., in the Police Court yesterday, in sentencing Mary Haslip, aged 41, married (Mr. Allan Moody), to 21 days' imprisonment for shoplifting. Accused pleaded guilty to three charges of stealing five frocks, valued at £6l, from a city drapery store on February 4, 7 and 14. Chief-Detective Hammond said that accused lived with her daughter, apart from her husband. A shop attendant saw accused and her daughter in the street, wearing frocks which she recognised as the property of her employers. The police Were notified, {ind when they interviewed accused she put them to considerable trouble in finding her address. When they visited her homo they discovered three other frocks. It appeared that tho thefts had bcon conducted on systematic lines. Mr. Moody said that accused's state of health might have had a great deal to do with her lapse, although ho would not advance it as an excuse. Sho had been managing an apartment house for her bus hand and had a little money, and her husband was prepared to help her if sho were ordered to make restitution. Counsel suggested, however, that £6l was an unusually high valuo for five ffocks. Restitution could, perhaps, be mado at tho wholesale valuo.

Chief-Detective Hammond : They are expensive frocks. This one, for instance, has a good deal of silvor about it. Tho Magistrate: Sho got them cheap enough, at any rate. Why not knock them down to £lO and get over tho difficulty that way ? On tho first charge accused was sentenced to 21 days' imprisonment, and on the two other charges sho was admitted to probation for two years. The question of restitution was left until Major Gordon could arrange some terms with tho owners of tho frocks. Mr. Moody strongly protested against tho decision to order restitution in addition to imposing a term of imprisonment. "Accused has been punished on tho criminal charges, and a Criminal Court has no right to fix tho amount of civil liability," ho said.