CAREER OF CRIME

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22832, 17 March 1936, Page 2

CAREER OF CRIME

LABOURER FINED FOR ASSAULT “MOST UNDESIRABLE TYPE” “ This man is the most undesirable type we can have about the city. He started off his career of crime in 1922. and since then he has been convicted 24 times for robbery, assault, obscene language, resisting the police, and those types of offences.” These terms were used by Chief Detective Young in the Police Court yesterday to describe John Jamieson Fraser, a labourer, aged 46, who was convicted of a charge of assaulting Albert John Eames, a watchmaker, of Brown street, on February 26. He was fined £5, in default 14 days’ imprisonment. A charge of stealing a gold watch and chain, valued at £l6, the property of Eames, to which Fraser pleaded not guilty, was dismissed.

The hearing of the charges opened on Thursday, when the police witnesses were heard, and was adjourned until yesterday afternoon. It was alleged by the prosecution that Fraser waylaid Eames on his way home from work and robbed him of the watch and chain.

Dealing with the theft charge Mr C. J. L. White, who appeared for Fraser, said there was no evidence to warrant sending the accused for trial. The evidence was so flimsy that it would be a waste of public money to send him for trial. No other inference could be drawn from the evidence than that both men were drunk. The magistrate (Mr H. W. Bundle) said the charge would be dismissed. Mr White added that if the second count were amended to one of street fighting he would advise Fraser to plead guilty, but the chief detective said he would not agree to an amendment of the charge.

The magistrate said there was evidence of an assault, and the accused then pleaded guilty. Fraser was also ordered to pay witnesses’ expense (£l’l7s), and was given 14 days to find the money on condition that he reports daily to the police.