CAR CONVERSION

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24449, 7 November 1940, Page 3

CAR CONVERSION

YOUNG MAN’S BAP RECORD PRISON TERM IMPOSED United PikEss Association, ; . ' , .WELLINGTON, Nov. 6. When counsel in the Police Court today took sharp exception to a state-, merit by Detective Sergeant W. McLennan, who was prosecuting, that the A offence of car conversion had been committed eight days ’after the defendant had been released from the Borstal, where he had been serving a sentence for a similar type of offence <• in which a girl had been killed, the magistrate (Mr J. L. Stout) interposed by saying he did not think counsel should worry; the defendant Trad a bad enough record as it was. Counsel was maintaining that on the occasion the girl was killed the defendant was charged, and the.case was dismissed. ’ and that the case that took him to the Borstal , occurred later.Counsel pleaded that the defendant had no criminal tendencies apart from the conversion of cars, and it might help, ■ he suggested, if the court could make some recommendation. He should be allowed to serve his country. The magistrate said the public had to be protected. He had noticed that only last week-end four or live cars had been taken. “On the first ocr casion you were before the court you were admonished and discharged,” he said, addressing the defendant, James Alexander Kennedy,, aged 21, a farm hand. “Later.on again you were given three years' probation, and that would not stop you. Then you got two years in the Borstal, and that did not stop you. On this occasion you are going to get 12 months’' hard labour.”