BAD LITERATURE.
PRISONER’S FRUITLESS PLEA. WELLINGTON, May 10. William Victor Haslam, 20 years of age, who appeared at the Supreme Court today for sentence on three charges of breaking and entering and theft, said: “I have been reading blood and thunder stuff, and I got an impulse to do this sort of thing. I gave the police every assistance, and all the stolen property has been recovered. “The police regard this young man as the makings of a very cunning and dangerous criminal,” stated Mr P.S.K. Macassey, the Crown Prosecutor. “When arrested he had in his possession a complete kit of housebreaking instruments and 23 detonators. He was convicted of similar offences in England, and was warned to give up this reading. His Honor (Mr Justice MacGregor) observed that it was true that he had been reading literature of a criminal type, and his mind seemed to have been poisoned. Probation was out of the question.. Haslam was ordered to be detained in the Borstal Institute for a period not exceeding three years.
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/OW19270517.2.163
Bibliographic details
Otago Witness, Issue 3818, 17 May 1927, Page 36
Word Count
173BAD LITERATURE. Otago Witness, Issue 3818, 17 May 1927, Page 36
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