ARMED ROBBER

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 22172, 27 July 1935, Page 12

ARMED ROBBER

SENTENCE OF COURT FIVE YEARS' REFORMATIVE RECENT WELLINGTON CRIME ELDERLY WOMAN'S ORDEAL [BY TELEGRAPH —PRESS ASSOCIATION] WELLINGTON, Friday .In the Supreme Oourl; to-day the Chief Justice, Sir Michael Myers, sentenced James Hopkins, aged 44 years, i to reformative detention for a period | of five years on charges of assault and I robbery while armed. | The prisoner assaulted and robbed I Johanna Byrne and Joseph Byrne at I their borne in Tinakori Road on April 122 while armed with an automatic j pistol. ' The Chief Justice, in imposing sen- ' tence, said the prisoner was fortunate, I and possibly others were fortunate. 1 that worse results had not followed his visit to the house. Fortunately, the prisoner had not used the weapon, but it was quite within the bounds of possibility that Mrs. Byrne might have died of shock. Before sentence was passed counsel called evidence as to Hopkins' character, one witness stating; that on the night of the occurrence the prisoner I was " pretty drunk." j Addressing the Bench, counsel said Hopkinß had served in the war anci had been a prominent footballer and an excellent cricketer. He had been wounded, suffered from malaria and was in receipt of a pension of £8 7s 4d a month. His marriage had been an unhappy one and it was suggested that this had preyed upon his mind. Ii; was pointed out that the cartridges in the automatic pistol were the wrong way round , and that the prisoner made no attempt to use it. The Chief Justice said the prisoner had gone into a house where an elderly woman was alone and had presented a pistol at her. It was a very painful case and it was the kind of case that necessarily gave the sentencing judge a good deal of anxious thought. Robbery under arms, because that was what it amounted to, was a very serious offence. The prisoner had first of all pointed the pistol at an inoffensive and defenceless old lady, whom he gagged and tied and assaulted. Then subse- . cjuently, except for assault, he did the ■ same thing to her son vrhen he came into the house. STORY OF THE CASE EVIDENCE GIVEN ![N COURT During the' hearing cf the charge against Hopkinß in the Magistrate's Court in Wellington Johanna Byrne, widow, residing in Tinakori Road, said that her son Joseph, her daughter Mnr?;aret and a boarder named McLaughlan ived at her house. While alone in the house she heard a knock at the back door. When she opened it accused walked in. He asked her where her daughter and son were, and also if there was anyone else about. Witness was attacked by accused and threatened with a weapon and subsequently gagged and bound. Accused then ransacked the room. She heard him open a bag, from which £1 was afterwards missing. Some time after her son came in and she heard sounds of a struggle and an order, "Hands up." Joseph Byrne, son of the last, witness, ! said that accused overcame him, pressed j a revolver to his head, and ordered him ' to face the wall, with his hands up. Accused bound his hands behind his back and ordered him upstairs. He followed witness to his own. room, where | he bound him and relieved him of cigar- | ettes and money.