YOUTH SENTENCED

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25173, 13 March 1943, Page 3

YOUTH SENTENCED

CHARGES OF BURGLARY Angus Donoghue, aged 18, appeared before Mr Justice Kennedy in the Supreme Court yesterday for sentence, on two charges of breaking, entering, and theft at Mr U O. t G. Stevens, who represented the prisoner, said that Donoghue’s trouble appeared to be that he was. at an early age, earning too much money. Some time ago he was earning from £3 to £5 a week, but he had since been unemployed. The probation officer (Mr E. Mosley) had suggested that nothing short of detention in In institution would be of any benefit to the prisoner, but counsel submitted that it might well be that the prisoner would come out worse than he was at present. His Honor said that after breaking into the premises of the Air Training Corps and stealing money and equipment, the prisoner had proceeded to Christchuich. masquerading as an airman. He committed further acts of dishonesty there in circumstances which were discreditable. On returning to Dunedin he entered the premises of the Air Training Corps and again stole money and equipment. Already. for dishonesty the prisoner had been under the supervision of the Child Welfare Officer, and his Honor added that he was in complete agreement with the recommendation of the experienced probation officer. It was clearly a case for institutional training, and he could not adopt the suggestion of counsel that the prisoner should not be sent there because he might come out worse. •• You are the very class of person who should be sent there,” his Honor said to the prisoner. The Borstal institutions in this country happily, he added, had a very high percentage of success. Donoghue was ordered to be detained in a Borstal institution for two years on each charge, the sentences to be concurrent.