REMAND OPPOSED

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22538, 1 October 1936, Page 16

REMAND OPPOSED

CASE OF YOUNG CLERK ALLEGED THEFT OF CAR A request that accused should bo dealt with summarily at Auckland instead of being remanded to Wanganui, was made by counsel for Phillip Walter D'Arcy Stewart, clerk, aged 19, who appeared before Mr. F. K. Hunt, S.M.j in tho Police Court yesterday, charged with the theft of a motor-car valued at £230, the property of Jack Herbert Luxford, at Wanganui, on September 21. "This young man is going to plead guilty to tho charge, and I submit that he should be dealt with here," said Mr. Munro, when Detective-Ser-geant McHugh asked that accused should be remanded' to appear at Wanganui on October 5. "Ho is not a man of any criminal tendencies. Ho has barely passed the juvenile stage. This is a case where he should be dealt with summarily on the basis of conversion. The .penalty would be the same in either case." Mr. Munro added that if accused was sent to Wanganui, he would not be dealt with until November, and there would be an expenditure of public money in sending him to Wellington, where he would be exposed to influences in confinement that were not very good. Detective-Sergeant McHugh said the case was one of the theft of a motorcar, and the witnesses were in Wanganui. On accused's own admission, he stole the Car for the purpose of selling it to get money to go to Australia. The property in the car that would bo the subject of further charges had been thrown into the Wanganui River. His instructions were that accused shoidd be remanded to Wanganui. "This is an indictable charge, and I cannot deal with it," said tho magistrate. "But it seems rather a pity—all this trouble and expenditure of public money. It would be much bettei* to deal with him now and get him back to work. It could all be dealt with in ten minutes." Accused was remanded to appear nt Wanganui on October 5, bail being allowed in the sum of £3OO or two sureties of £l5O. An application for the suppression of his name was refused, the magistrate stating that it had been published already.