STOLEN PROPERTY

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 22223, 25 September 1935, Page 18

STOLEN PROPERTY

BEARING THE LOSS PAYMENT TO DEALER SOUGHT COURT REFUSES ORDER The recurring question of who is to bear the loss when Btolen property is recovered from the possession of*secondhand dealers arose in the Supreme Court yesterday. After a man who had committed several burglaries in the city had been sentenced by Mr. Justice Callan to two years' imprisonment, Mr. R. Meredith, for the Crown, asked that some payment be made to second-hand dealers to whom the prisoner had sold stolen property. The Court had power to make such an order. 1 His Honor: What are they asking? That the owners should be compelled to i pay the dealers? Why should Ido that? 1 Mr. Meredith said one dealer felt certain that the property had been stolen. 1 Ho immediately communicated with the police, and was probably tho means of » the man being arrested. His Honor said that what was proposed was rather hard on tho owner who had been deprived of his property. It was very desirable, no doubt, to en--1 courage pawnbrokers to carry on their business so as to lead to tho detection ■ of crime, but it was rather hard that that should bo done al the expense of ! the property-owner. Mr. Meredith said that if the pawnbroker was not keen and alert the 1 owner might lose his property entirely and never see it again. In this particular caso the owner had got his property back. Mr. Noble, who appeared for the prisoner, said the dealer need not have bought the property. He could have assisted the police without buying it. His Honor: That is so. He could have memorised the appearance of the ( man and the articles. The ethics of this are rather too mixed for mo to make , an order. I will leave the loss lying where it falls.