SUGAR IN PETROL TANK

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVI, Issue 23425, 15 August 1939, Page 12

SUGAR IN PETROL TANK

YOUNG MAORI'S OFFENCE CONVICTION AT WHANGAREI [BY TKI.EGnAPH—OWN CO!UtKSI'ONI)KNT] WHANGAREI, 'Monday "To have sugar put in a petrol tank is no joke, especially*if the driver did not notice it, as this man did," commented the magistrate, Mr. G. N. Morris, in the Police Court to-day. "I have had cases like this in the past, although not for some time, and L have regarded them seriously, and fined heavily for them," Jie added. ' The magistrate's remarks were made when Isaac Shortland, a Maori, aged 17, of Pipiwai, pleaded guilty to putting sugar in tho petrol tank oi a motor-car.

Senior-Sergeant A. Henderson said the complainant had attended a dance and had left his ear outside. When he left he noticed sugar, on the tank and found that sugar had been put in with the petrol. Snortlnnd had admitted taking a cup of sugar from the dance hall after supper and putting it in the tank, -but he could not give a reason for his action. Such offences were difficult to detect. Taking into account Shortland's youth and tho fact that he had not Ix-en-in trouble previously, tho magistrate 'convicted him and ordered him to pay 12s 6d, the cost of the petrol.