TERM IN GAOL

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVI, Issue 23272, 15 February 1939, Page 17

TERM IN GAOL

NAVAL STOKER'S CASE INTOXICATION ADMITTED CONVERSION OF MOTOR-CAR " This man obviously would have been a great menace had be got away with that car," said Mr. C. R. Orr Walker, S.M.. in the Police Court yesterday when Jack Colin Clegg. a stoker on H.M.S. Leander, pleaded guilty to charges of being in charge of a motorcar while in a state of intoxication, and of unlawfully converting to his own use a motor-car valued at £.'ls, the property of Rex Oswald Wickman. Sub-Inspector Fox said that at 9.15 on Monday night Constable T. Griffith was walking down Wellesley Street in plain clothes and saw accused pushing a small car and then jump in behind the driving wheel. The constable stopped him and asked accused to get out of the car. As Constable Griffith was not in uniform he went to get another constable and when he returned accused had disappeared, but they located him at a dance near by. He was arrested and a doctor certified he was intoxicated. Accused said he had been confined to r the ship for three weeks for medical reasons and it had worried him. He came ashore on Monday and had a lot of beer. A naval officer said accused bore a very good character. There were no marks against his previous career.

Accused was sentenced to two weeks' imprisonment on the • intoxication charge and for unlawfuly converting the car he was ordered to come up for sentence if called upon within six months.