THEFT OF COPPER

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23111, 9 August 1938, Page 15

THEFT OF COPPER

MONEY FOE GAMBLING MARRIED MAN SENTENCED JUDGE REFUSES PROBATION A labourer, Albert Edward Butler, aged 33, who had pleaded guilty in the Police Court to thefts of copper and copper wire valued at £l6l from the Waitemata Electric-Power Board, was brought before Mr. Justice Fair in the Supreme Court for sentence yesterday. The offences had extended from -May 22, 1937, to Juno 25 last. Mr. Henry, for the prisoner, said he was a married man with three children. This was the first occasion on which he had been in any serious trouble. He had got into debt through entering on a course of gambling, and ho knew where this copper wiro could be obtained quite easily. His Honor said the offences had extended for more than 12 months, and the copper wire had been stolen almost weekly. Mr. Henry said prisoner hud a pressing need on account of his gambling. Ho had now been in custody for some four weeks. "No man who steals for the purposes of gambling will be admitted to probation except in the most exceptional circumstances," said His Honor, "so exceptional that I cannot imagine a case where that course should be follower!. It is most unfortunate that in this case, as in so many, the punishment which 1 am obliged to impose will fall also upon the prisoner's wife and young children." Over the whole of the time through which the offences extended, His Honor said, the prisoner was committing what, he knew were grave offences, and ho persisted in them. The pressing need to which counsel had referred was the prisoner's need to obtain money to carry on his gambling, and the report showed that tiiat had been accompanied by si certain amount of drinking. In the whole of the circumstances the least sentence he could impose would be one of 12 months' reformative detention.