PILLAGED MAILS

Southland Times, Issue 20662, 18 April 1929, Page 8

PILLAGED MAILS

THE WAHINE ROBBERY

SENTENCES IMPOSED ON YOUNG MEN

HARD LABOUR AND BORSTAL (Per United Press Association.) Wellington, April 17. As Thomas Gordon and Arthur Henry YVilliam Bevan, two young men who pleaded guilty to the theft of postal packets from the ferry steamer YVahine, appeared before Mr Justice MacGregor for sentence, counsel for Bevan said that he appeared to have been the mug in the affair as the police did not suggest he had done anything more than keep watch to see that no one interfered.

Counsel for Gordon said that he had worked since he was eleven years old and as a youth he had worked for some years in a racing stable. He hacj taken full responsibility for the robbery and desired to be sentenced to a term of hard labour. The judge: YVhy does he want hard labour ?

Counsel: He realizes that he can’t expect too much leniency and that physical work will perhaps do him good. Judge: I mean what did he have before. Counsel said that it was reformative detention.

Judge: I see, and he did not like it. The Crown prosecutor said that the police regarded Gordon as a person of a very bad reputation and the makings of a daring criminal. The judge said that Gordon seenied to be fast becoming a hardened criminal. He had asked for hard labour and he would get it. He would be sentenced to three vears’ hard.

Bevan was ordered to the Borstal for two years.

The sum of £l6, found on Bevan, who admitted that it was part of the proceeds of the. robbery, was ordered to be returned to the Postmaster-General.