GAOL REQUESTED

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23135, 6 September 1938, Page 17

GAOL REQUESTED

TWO YEARS OR MORE MAORI'S STRANGE PLEA REMANDED FOR SENTENCE Pleading guilty to a charge of unlawfully converting a motor-truck to his own use, Luis Edwards, a Maori labourer, aged 32, appeared in the Police Court yesterday and requested I lie magistrate, Mr. C R. Orr Walker, to send him to gaol for at least two vcars.

Sub-Inspector Fox said accused was appearing on remand. On August 29 he surrendered himself to a traffic officer and said he had taken the truck with tho intention of going to Helensville and giving himself up to the police there. Accused had several previous convictions, said. Mr. Fox, and in December last he had been lined £5 at Cambridge for driving while in a state of intoxication. He had taken the truck after an altercation with its owner.

Mr. Fox produced a letter written by accused. It was incoherent for the greater part, but accused expressed his dislike for working on his "homestead" as there was no more in it thanhis "tucker." He claimed to have studied "tho law of legal business and unlegal law." The Magistrate: Do you want to say anything? Accused: I will say something after I know Avhat punishment I get. Further questioned by the magistrate, accused said he wanted to go to gaol, not for a short term, but for two years or more.

Accused was remanded for a week for sentence so that further inquiries conld be mado