CITY POLICE COURT

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25560, 13 June 1944, Page 7

CITY POLICE COURT

Monday, June 12. (Before Mr H. W. Bundle, S.M.) Bicycle Thefts “ The offence of sneak-thieving of bicycles is a most reprehensible practice,” said the magistrate, sentencing Charles William Grimwood Home, aged 45, a salesman and grocer, who pleaded guilty to eight charges of theft of bicycles, the total value of which was £SB. Seven of the charges rela,ed to offences committed at Dunedin between Mav 16 and 22, and the remaining charge related to the theft of a bicycle at Timaru. The bicycles were the property of William Henry Croot, Edward Melville Norrish, W. Scoular and Co.. Ltd.. John Po.tinge*: Cooper, Walter Fergus McCay, Vincent James Lovell, Donald Leckie and Charles Joseph Newman.— Senior Detective Hall said that the accused had sold the bicycles to secondhand dealers and had received £l7 for them. All the mcahines had been recovered. The accused hau previously been before the court for theft, false pretences and unlawful conversion of a motor car.— The accused said that during the last 14 years he had broken out only three times in mad bouts of drinking, when his sense of respectability left him.—The magistrate said that a deliberate system of thieving of bicycles had been disclosed. On each of the first four charges the accused would be sentenced to three months’ imprisonment. the sentences to be cumulative. On the other four charges he was convicted and discharged. On a charge of stealing a bicycle at Christchurch, he was remanded to appear there on Friday. Failure to Accept Direction

“In my opinion this was a somewhat specious attempt to ask the court to act as a court of appeal from a decision of the Man-power Appeal Committee, said the magistrate, giving his decision in the previously adjourned charge against Marjorie Lois Ludlow, a hairdresser, of having failed to comply with a direction of the man-power au.l'.orities to take up employment as a wardsmaid with the Otago Hospital Board. At the original hearing Mr J. B. Thomson appeared for the defendant, who pleaded not guilty, and Mr A. J. Haub represented the National Service Department. The magistrate said that the defendant was first directed by the manpower officer on March 3, and an appeal against this direction was disallowed. She subsequently obtained a re-hearing on April 21, and a direction was given that she should take up employment on May 1 The defendant admitted that she had failed to comply with the order, on the grounds that she had a lawful excuse for such failure. No new factors, however, had arisen since the matter came before the Man-power Appeal Committee on April 21. No further appeal was allowed by the regulations, and if a person failed to carry out a direction of the Appeal Committee it was an offence unless legal justification could be shown—for example, an illness after the case had been heard by the commi.tee. No such justification had been shown, and the defendant must be convicted. —The defendant was fined £5, witn costs (lOsl. ’ „ ~. Man-power Regulations

P. and W. Henderson, Ltd., for whom Mr J. B. Thomson appeared, pleaded guilty to committing a breach of the manpower regulations by employing Eric Fleetwood Dawson as a traveller without the prior consent of the district manpower officer.—Mr Thomson said that the offence had been committed purely as the result of an oversight.—The defendant was fined £7 10s, with costs (10s). Charge Dismissed

The Co-operative Dairy Company of Otago, Ltd., for whom Mr E. J. Anderson appeared, pleaded not guilty to a charge of committing a breach of the man-power regulations by employing Violet Rosena Rosie without the prior consent of the man-power officer.—Mr Anderson submitted that as a dairy company the defendant company came within the exempted clause in the regulations which made it unnecessary for it to apply for permission to enage the worker concerned. —The magistrate upheld this submission, and dismissed the charge, Theft of Petrol

Douglas William Johnstone, aged 19, a labourer, for whom Mr C. H. Stevens appeared, pleaded guilty to a charge of stealing four gallons of motor spirits, valued at 11s 2d, the property of some persons unknown—Senior Detective Hall said that the defendant and another young man were in the habit of borrowing a motor car from a friend and bringing it back with more petrol in it than when they took it away. The accused had admitted to the police that he had taken small quantities of petrol from parked cars late at night and in the early hours of the morning. The offence with which he was charged covered three small operations. “ The taking of petrol from cars parked in the street is a mean and contemptible trick,” said Mr Hall.—Mr Stevens said that altogether four gallons of petrol had been taken—a gallon at a time. The accused had been an accessory on three occasions, and on the last occasion he had taken the petrol himself. He was awaiting entry to the air force as a pilot, and it had been in this waiting period that he had got into trouble.— “ Sneak-thieving from motor cars is a most objectionable habit,” said the magistrate, “ and an offender deserves no consideration from the court.”—The accused was convicted and remanded in custody until Friday, the probation officer to furnish a report. The magistrate declined lo make an order for the suppression of the accused’s name. i

Chimney Fires On charges of allowing chimneys to catch fire, Charles Alexander Bain, John Faulkner Bayne, Meda Morrell, Brian George Cooper, and Caroline Pluck were each fined 10s and costs (10s). A similar charge against William John Crawford was dismissed, subject to payment of court costs (10s).