MOTHER INTERVENES

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19131, 28 September 1936, Page 4

MOTHER INTERVENES

TWO SONS BEFORE COURT S.M. ALTERS DECISION V dramatic intervention by a mother persuaded Mr. H. W. Bundle, S.M., to reverse his decision in the Dunedm Police Court on Thursday that two of three youths charged with the unlawful conversion of a car should be remanded in custody until to-day. When the magistrate ordered John Alexander William Forrester, aged 21, relief worker, Frederick Mason Forrester, aged 18, fur worker, and John Elliot Rowe, aged 18, fishmonger's assistant, to be held in custody pending reports by the probation officer and child welfare officer, a woman rose in the body of the court and called out: "May I speak? My boy has to go to work at 12." She was asked by the court orderly to come forward, and as she advanced she said: "I cannot afford to lose the money." She told the magistrate, that she was the mother of two of the accused.

Mr. Bundle pointed out to her that the youths were apparently under no influence.

Referring to the charges, Mrs. Forrester said that complainant had no right to let her son have the car. He had been driving her about. "My youngest boy will probably lose his job now," she continued. "Why don't you make it Saturday morning, so that it will suit him?"

"Don't you know that he is liable to imprisonment?" asked the magistrate. ''Do you think it is a simple matter?"

"And I should be studied., too," the mother replied. The magistrate: Mrs. Forrester, you can see what has happened to these boys. Something will have to be done about them. John Alexander William Forrester was remanded in custody and the charges against the other two accused were adjourned until to-day. John Forrester pleaded guilty to two charges of converting a car valued at £BO, and the other two lads admitted one charge of conversion.