POLICE COURT CHARGES

Taranaki Daily News, 26 February 1931, Page 2

POLICE COURT CHARGES

CASES IN NEW PLYMOUTH VSTOLEN OVERCOAT SEEN ON MAN\. IMPRISONMENT FOR SEVEN DAYS. A boarder at tho Jubilee boardinghouse in New Plymouth hung his overcoat in his room on Tuesday. At five o’clock in the afternoon he found it had gone. He was going to the police station to report the matter when he saw a man named Jam.es W. Wilson wearing the overcoat in thp street. In consequence Wilson was charged before Mr. R. W. Tate in the Police Court at New Plymouth yesterday with the theft of an overcoat valued at £2. Wilson told the magistrate that he had come from Wellington looking for a job. He had had a couple of drinks. Otherwise he would not have taken the coat. The magistrate convicted him and sentenced him to seven days’ imprisonment. CASE OF WITHERS AND GROWCOTT SUMMARY CHARGES DEALT WITH. Summary charges were brought' by the police against Thomas J. Withers and Clarence Growcott. Withers was charged with signing and delivering a receipt for -£6 in New Plymouth on December 3 without stamping it, with procuring possession of a rifle at Rahotu on July 30, 1930, without having a permit, and with being in possession of a rifle for longer than seven days without being registered as the owner. Both Withers and Growcott were also charged with unlawfully removing the ears from a sheep-skin. For the accused, Air. G. Af. Spence said a plea of guilty was being entered. The men had already been dealt with on major charges and had been placed on probation. Both had families, Growcott having four children and Withers five, and. both were in very poor circumstances. During the time the offences had been committed both were living on an abandoned farm. “ ',

Now Growcott was trying to earn a living as a fisherman and was finding things difficult. Withers was looking for work under the unemployment scheme. The magistrate said he would consider the sheep matter as having been dealt with under the v major charges and on that the men would bo convicted and discharged. Withers was convicted and fined 10s with costs 13s with regard to the receipt. On the firearm charges he was convicted and discharged.

“TOO MUCH OF THIS GOES ON.” UNLAWFULLY ON RACECOURSE. “Too much of this goes on,” said, the magistrate when John A. Smith was charged with being unlawfully on the New Plymouth racecourse, being a person convicted of theft. He was convicted and fined £5, costs 10s. Detective Kearney said he. had found Smith in the enclosure. Smith had 'been convicted of theft in Wellington last year. MAINTENANCE APPLICATIONS. CANCELLATION OF ARREARS. . . ■ i Reginald W. Busing proceeded against Daisy May Busing for a variation of a maintenance order. The magistrate ordered that arrears amounting to over £lOO be cancelled to date, the order , to remain as it stood. In a complaint for variation of maintenance by Tame Puke against Polly Inia, the arrears were cancelled, the order to stand as before. Puke was ordered to pay the balance of costs 6s forthwith.