EXTENSIVE THEFTS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23219, 17 June 1937, Page 6

EXTENSIVE THEFTS

SUIT LENGTHS STOLEN WAREHOUSE BROKEN INTO Rolls of suiting material of an approximate value of £IBO formed the principal exhibit in the City Police Court yesterday, when a young man named Owen David Helm, aged 24 years, appeared before Mr J R. Bartholomew, S.M., and pleaded guilty to having broken and entered the warehouse of Messrs F H. King and Co., and stolen, between April 2 and June 3 of the present year, 33 suit lengths valued at £9O; 30 suit lengths valued at £7O; 60 suit lengths valued at £120; 24 suit lengths valued at £6O; 31 suit lengths valued at £81; and 32 suit lengths valued at £BO. Ernest Ricardo Smith, a director of the complainant firm, said that on June 2, while in Invercargill, he saw in a tailor’s shop some cloth which he identified as belonging to his firm As a result of further inquiries in Invercargill, he identified five other pieces of cloth which were the property of the firm. Three days later, witness called at the detective office in Dunedin, and was shown a quantity of cloth which had been stolen from his firm’s warehouse. An examination of stock then disclosed that clolh of an approximate value of £SOO had been stolen. An examination of the premises showed that a door leading from the warehouse to the goods lift had been sprung sufficiently to enable a person to undo the door bolts. The replacement cost of the cloth produced in court would be about £IBO.

Detective Russel], who arrested the accused, stated that the latter, when interrogated, admitted having stolen the cloth, of which he had sold 130 lengths in Invercargill. He had also retained some of the material in his rooms. In a statement to the police, lie explained that he had climbed up the lift well in the premises and undone the door of the lift, which gave access to the warehouse by urn fastening the bolts which held the door in position. He had broken into the premises six times, and in all had stolen approximately 210 suit lengths.

The accused was committed to the Supreme Court for sentence, bail being allowed on the first charge in his own recognisance of £IOO or two sureties of £SO each, and on each of the others in his own recognisance oi £SO, a condition being that he reports twice daily to the police.