PERSISTENT THEFTS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20075, 16 April 1927, Page 14

PERSISTENT THEFTS.

AN OFFENDER SENTENCED. MONEY TAKEN FROM BOYS. (Special to Daily '■'Tmes.) WELLINGTON, April 14. “Those were mean thefts in each case. The money was taken from young lads who could not afford to lose it,” said Chief Detective Ward in the Magistrate’s Court to-day when Ernest Leslie Burd, a bricklayer, aged 18, admitted eight charges of stealing various sums of money totalling £lO Os lOd. ... The Chief Detective said that the accused had taken the money when he was staying at a Y.M.C.A. hostel last January and February, He then went to Nelson, where he committed another theft for which he was now serving a sentence of one month’s imprisonment. Last year Burd was admitted to one year’s probation for converting a motor car to his own use. The Probation Officer (Mr T. P. Mills) stated that the accused had behaved in a most unsatisfactory manner while, on probation, and had been dismissed from his employment in Palmerston North because ho stole from his workmates. On the first charge Mr E. Pago, S.M., sentenced Burd to two years’ detention in the Borstal Institute, and convicted him and ordered him to come up for sentence when railed upon within that period on cadi of the other charges.