GAOL FOR WEEPING WIFE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20958, 22 August 1931, Page 2 (Supplement)

GAOL FOR WEEPING WIFE.

THEFT TO KEEP HOME GOING. CARE OF INVALID HUSBAND. DISTRESSING COURT STORY. Despite a. strong plea for mercy by a solicitor who appeared on her behalf, a woman, who was stated to have worked unsparingly to preserve her invalid husband's life and to care for her children, was sent to gaol at Nottingham,-recently. Mrs. Dorothy Leech, aged 29, pleadod guilly to, three charges of stealing £6 17s 6d from the Post Oflice Savings Bank bv means of forged withdrawal slips. Mr. F. Clayton, prosecuting on behalf of the Postmaster-General, explained that last November Mrs. Loech had staying with her another woman who was a depositor in the Post Office Savings Bank, and on three occasions she took this woman's deposit book to the Post Office and filled in a withdrawal form and twice drew £3, and on another occasion 17s 6d. Later, when inquiries were made, Mrs. Leech made a clean breast of everything. In normal circumstances, continued Mi'. Clayton, Mrs. Leech would be entitled to a great deal of sympathetic consideration, because there was no doubt that she had experienced considerable domestic trouble. Her husband was seriously ill, and she had two children under six years of age. Tho total income of the family was £1 12s 6d a week from the Public Assistance Committee, 7s 6d from National Health Insurance, and about 5s a week which she averaged by the work she did. Previous Convictions. Tho question of sympathy, however, proceeded Mr. Clayton, was affected by tho fact that she had been three times previously convicted. At Burton-on-Trent she was bound over for theft of dresses in 1925; in 1929 she was bound over for two years in Nottingham for attempting to obtain credit to the extent of £SOO, and last year she was sent to prison for three months for stealing a gold wristlet watch in Nottingham. It was stated that the whole of the monoy had been repaid to the Post Office. Mr. It. A. Young made an appeal on behalf of Mrs. Leech, who had in court with her a two-year-old boy. For the last four years, he stated, her husband had been unable to work on account of a terrible illness, and, time after time, he had to bo injected with morphia to enable him to bear the pain. Hers had been a terribly hard lot, but her one desiro had been to look after her children and preserve tho life of her husband. In the circumstances it had not been possible for Mrs. Leech to keep out of debt, and ono of the things in which she fell behind was tho payment of rent. Distraint was issued, and tho bailiff took away some of her furniture, bub left a mattress for her husband to sleep on. She was given a limited time in which to find the remainder of the money and save the rest of her furniture. Grit and Self-denial. No man could have shown more grit, more determination, or more self-denial than this woman," declared Mr. Young, who added that it was amazing how Mrs. Leech had worked in view of the fact that, she was expecting another baby. Her husband was in an extremely nervous condition, and, it was alleged by counsel had threatened his life. > " At four o'clock in the morning," continued Mr. Young, "Mrs. Leech was awakened by a baby's cry, and she found that her husband had either accidentally or otherwise turned out the light, and turned the gas on again. But for the cry of the child none of the family might have been here at all." Mrs. Leech was sentenced to two months' She was led weeping out of court.