ASKING FOR A LIFT

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXI, Issue 21911, 21 September 1934, Page 13

ASKING FOR A LIFT

CONSTABLE PICKS UP THIEF STOLEN CHEQUE AND MAILBAG When William Henry Cooper, tramping a North Canterbury road, hailed an approaching motor-car with the request for a lift, it must have been a surprise for him to find that the driver was a constable who was searching for him. These facts were put before the Police Court in Christchurch the other day by Sub-Inspector Powell, when Cooper, a labourer, 29 years of age, pleaded guilty to charges of stealing a cheque for £1 14s and also a mail-bag, valued at ss, the property of A. H. Baker. Cooper was sentenced to three months' imprisonment on the charge of stealing the cheque and seven days' imprisonment on the second charge. The sub-inspector said that the postmaster at Waiau informed Constable Sterrett at Culverden on September 6 that Mr. Baker's postal bag had been stolen. The next morning Mr. Baker saw the mail-bag in a dense patch of scrub, 20 yards from the gate. The bag was torn open and the letters had been opened, although most of them were put back in the bag. The constable said he had his suspicions of Cooper when the matter was reported to him, and overtook him on the road, 20 miles away. Cooper signalled the constable's' car to stop as it approached him and asked for a lift. When Cooper was in the car the constable asked him if he had taken the bag, or a cheque from a letter. At first he denied it, but he subsequently admitted it. Cooper had a number of previous convictions for breaking, entering and theft and false, pretences.