“AMATEUR HIGHWAYMEN.”

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20642, 14 February 1929, Page 10

“AMATEUR HIGHWAYMEN.”

THE WESTFIELD HOLD-UP. ONE YEAR’S REFORMATIVE DETENTION. (Special to Daily Times.) AUCKLAND, February 13. Described by Mr Justice Blair as “ amateur . highwaymen," the two men concerned in the Westfield hold-up, who, replete with revolvers and mask stopped a car load of jockeys and a woman returning from the Te Kuiti races early one morning, stood in the dock in the Supreme Court this morning to hear their sentence. David M'Kenzie Stewart, alias Stoner, aged 27, and Roy Patrick Hitching, alias Newman, aged 20, were tfie men, and dressed with infinite care in navy blue and grey suits respectively, they stood erect while they listened to the pleas which counsel made for them. Both had pleaded guilty to attempted robbery under arms, and Stewart had also admitted obtaining money by false pretences.

Both prisoners were sentenced to one years’ reformative detention on the attempted robbery under arms charge, and Stewart was sentenced to a further six months on the charge of obtaining money by false pretences. In making his plea on behalf of Hitching, Mr W. H. Cocker aid the affair had certain Gilbertian touches. Both the prisoners were thoroughly frightened, and they allowed several cars to pass before they had the courage to hold one up. The shooting was entirely accidental. Mr Leary, for Stewart, describing the hold-up, said their procedure was the weakest imaginable. They blocked the road at Westfield with a “Stop! Look out for the engine!” sign and a hurricane lamp. This was not a tptal obstruction, and several motorists, amid many maledictions, managed to pass it. “ Frightened in the first place, their courage now began to ooze out of their boots," said Mr Leary. “Their nerve was broken. They held a council of war to see whether they would go on with the hold-up or not, and they decided to try one more car. “ I haye very carefully considered the representations of counsel,” said his Honor. “The case is not one in which I can grant probation. I think both men were two amateurs in crime, and did it more or less on the spur -of the moment, but from the point of view of the people held up it was a premeditated attempt at highway robbery. I propose to give you both terms of reformative detention, but even then I have some doubt whether I am not too lenient. You both require a sharp lesson, and I would be failing in ray duty if I did not give it to you. You will both be sentenced to one year’s reformative detention, and Stewart will serve an extra six months on the other count to which he pleaded guilty.”