UNUSUAL PLEA

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22792, 28 July 1937, Page 15

UNUSUAL PLEA

NOT LONG TO LIVE REASON GIVEN FOR CRIME The plea that a man who believed that he did not have long to live had resorted to crime in order to make his wife independent before he died was advanced in the Melbourne Court recently, when Francis Robert Dunn, aged 32, fitter, pleaded guilty to 13 charges of housebreaking and stealing. Mr. J. A. Nimmo, for Dunn, said that liis client had a wife and three children, and was married at the age of 19 years. In 1936 he had a nervous breakdown. He was told- that he had a very short time to live, and he became obsessed with the fear that his wife and children would bo unprovided for if he died. He then decided to steal, so that his wife might have money to open a busings. "The depositions disclose that you have become an absolute pest and a menace to the neighbourhood in which you live," said Judge Macindoe, when passing sentence. "It is dreadful that a man who has borne the good character that you have borne should have caused all this damage, not only to your own family, but also to tho victims of your depredations." Accused was sentenced to throe years' imprisonment.