SERIES OF THEFTS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21292, 20 September 1932, Page 13

SERIES OF THEFTS

MEM WITH BAD RECORDS KNOWN AS CAT BURGLAR | SUPREME COURT SENTENCES Two cases of persistent burglaries .by young men who had already acquired bad records were dealt with by Mr. Justice Smith in the Supreme Court yesterday. " It seems to me that you have already shown all the signs of being a confirmed and expert criminal," said His Honor, addressing Reginald Gordon Cotterill, aged 22. Cotterill had pleaded guilty in the lower Court to four charges of breaking and entering premises by i day and theft, and to two of breaking and entering with intent to commit a crime.

When prisoner's counsel was pleading his youth and suggesting that lie had been driven to this desperate course by his anxiety to help himself and to help others dependent on him, His Honor intervened to refer to the prisoner's record. " He seems to bo a person who can get on a roof and break through skylights," ho said.

Counsel: I believe they do call him the cat burglar, but I do not know anything about his ability in that direction.

His Honor said Cotterill had been charged in 1929 on 15 charges of . false pretences and breaking and entering and

theft. Ho was then 19. Ho served a period in Borstal and when he came out was sentenced to two months' for breaking his licence. After that ho received a month's imprisonment for theft. Then lie came out and forthwith proceeded to commit theso six offences. His Honor told Cotterill that his three years' Borstal detention had dono him no good. "You are a thoroughly dangerous person," he said, "and you have got to be put out of the road for as long a period as is just. You will be sentenced to reformative detention for a period not exceeding four years." There were somewhat similar circuwi-

stances in the case of Ernest Edward

Newton, aged 21, who appeared for sentence on four charges of breaking and entering offices in Auckland and theft. Counsel admitted that prisoner had received a term of probation in 1929 for theft. He had been* out of work for some time, and had not done very much harm in this case. His Honor said Newton had pleaded guilty to two charges of breaking into tho Seddon Memorial Technical College and stealing £4 on each of two occasions, to breaking in and stealing £2 12s from the New Lynn Borough Council, and to stealing £22 from the Auckland Bus Company. "You also seem to have formed criminal habits," he said. " The report

of you is a bad one, and the police say that you are lazy, a frequenter of billiards saloons and addicted to gambling in all its forms. You havo no excuse for not going to the single men's camps. You will be ordered to be detained in a Borstal Institute for two 'years."