YOUTHFUL BUT DARING THIEVES.

Otautau Standard and Wallace County Chronicle, Volume V, Issue 211, 18 May 1909, Page 2

YOUTHFUL BUT DARING THIEVES.

One of the most daring gangs of boy criminals ever brought to book was recently captured by the Nottingham police, and the members were sentenced at Nottingham Children^ Court. For two months they have kept the trading community, especially of the lace market, in a state of absolute panic, and have defied the most strenuous and cunning efforts of the police to capture them. A young clerk, named Joseph Skevington, aged fifteen, was said to be the leader of the gang, and his youthful band of desperadoes included George M'Clure, !l5), a clerk ; Wm. Henry Richardson (14), laborer; Harold M'Clure (12), schoolboy; and Frank Winters (16), an errand boy. The end of each Aveek was invariably chosen for their operations, when most of the foreign mails were due. They broke open Jetter-boxes and stole the letters, arranging scouts so that no one could surprise them while at work. To stop this pillage special detectives were sent out, but the gang always eluded them. Letters containing marked postal orders payable at Nottingham General Post Office were next placed in boxes, but the detectives waited in vain at the post office. The lads have now confessed that all cheques and postal orders that were crossed or made payable at any particular office were destroj r ed, together with all other papers. Nothing but unmarked postal orders were retained. For a month, also, the police have been baffled by robberies from telephone kiosks in the streets, and a watch was kept upon them by special detectives, but in spite of these precautions the telephone boxes were robbed under their v^jry eye-. j The lads have confessed to these thefts and to at least one case of house-breaking. The magistrates declared it the worst and most extraordinary case ever' , heard in court. Skevington, George M'Clure, and Hichardson were sent to a reformatory for five years ; Harold M'Clure was ordered to receive six strokes with the birch ; and Winters was^ sent for three months' imprisonment under the Borstal system. None of them had been convicted previously, and their parents declared that they were astonished when the conspiracy was revealed to them by the police. The younger M'Clure cried out in terror when ordered to be bircned.