CARS CONVERTED

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23002, 1 April 1938, Page 10

CARS CONVERTED

BOYS' BOLD ESCAPADE

TOUR OF NORTH ISLAND THEFTS COMMITTED ON WAY A MAORI AND A EUROPEAN [by telegraph —press association J NEW PLYMOUTH, Thursday An amazing scries of thefts and car conversions was revealed in the Children's Court to-day when two boys, a Maori and a European, who had escaped from the Wcraroa training farm, faced a number of charges. The Maori was ordered to be returned to Weraroa, and the European boy was ordered to be sent to a Borstal institution for one year.

The boys, it was stated, took a car at Levin, left it at Palmerston North and took another. This they left at llawera, and selected an expensive ear which they drove to New Plymouth. Thero they broke into a garage and stole money and goods. They toured Auckland and the Bay of Plenty, and later returned to New Plymouth, where they were apprehended. On the tour they committed a number of thefts.

MAORI YOUTHS' JOY RIDES

PROSECUTION AT BOTOUUA [I»V TELEC!RAPII —OWN CORRESPONDENT] ROTOHUA, Thursday A series of car conversions in Rotorua during tho Christmas period which gave the police a considerable amount of trouble in their efforts to trace the vehicles and the offetulers, was cleared up in the Rotorua Police Court this afternoon when three natives, Arthur Midwood, Tata Bodgers,. and Reginald Tai, pleaded guilty before Mr. S. L. Paterson, S.M., to tho offences. f J he accused faced charges of conversion between December 20 and February 2. Senior-Sergeant E. J. Carroll, who prosecuted, stated that the youths, who were all under 20 years of age, appeared to loiter about billiard rooms during the day time, and go joyriding in other peoples' cars in the evening. All the cars had been found abandoned not far from where they liad been taken, but in one cast? the vehicle had been capsized and damaged to the extent of £BO. In another instance a collision had occurred with a motor van, the three accused decamping and leaving tho car damaged to tho extent of £l6, and tho v an to the extent of £lO.

The magistrate convicted and sentenced Mid wood and Hodgers to two years' reformative detention, and Reginald Tai, who the police stated had not driven any of tho cars, to two years' probation.