TWO YEARS’ PROBATION

Taranaki Daily News, 20 January 1933, Page 9

TWO YEARS’ PROBATION

PALTRIDGE CHANGES PLEA WAIT ARA MOTOR-CYCLE SMASHED. OUTCOME OF LATE DISTURBANCES. MAGISTRATE MAKES AN APPEAL.

After altering his plea 'to guilty at the conclusion of the police case at New Plymouth, Richard Paerau Paltridge was admitted to probation for two years for committing mischief at Waitara late at night on January 8, when he damaged a motor-cycle belonging to A. W. Prout, a “free labourer” at the freezing works. A., condition was that he should pay the costs of the prosecution amounting to £2 6s and £2l 12s 9d, the cost of repairing l the machine. It was intimated that his friends would assist him to find the money. A direct appeal to Paltridge was made by Mr. R. W. Tate, S.M., after Mr. J. H. Sheat had made a pie for leniency, including a suggestion for probation. He had found considerable difficulty in arriving at a decision on the matter, said the magistrate. It was not so very long ago . that he had convicted Paltridge for intimidation and deferred sentence, with the comment that if there was a recurrence of trouble he would have the greatest difficulty in not sending him to prison. Yet here he was in Court again. The business of the Court was to see that effect was given to the efforts of the police to keep peace at Waitara. “I have no desire 'to send you to prison,” continued Mr. Tate, “but the. object we have to achieve is keeping the peace at Waitara. The people called free labourers have a perfect right to work, to live and to be protected. But I am going to take the risk of acceding to counsel’s request by granting you probation. I do trust, however, that there will be no further trouble of this sort, and that you will do your best to behave yourself.” Mr.. Tate pointed out that probation only meant a deferring of sentence and that for a breach Paltridge might be committed to prison for three months, betades which the full sentence might be imposed for the offence for which probation had been extended. Therefore a breach of probation might mean not three months’ imprisonment but nine months’. He would place Paltridge on probation for two years. At this Stage the magistrate asked counsel if some of the other men from Waitara were present. C— Mr. Sheat intimating that he thought they were, Mr. Tate said he hoped u.e young men would not run away with the idea that the extension of probation meant letting an offender off. “If I seem to be overlenient,” he continued, “I give you this further warning, that any breach will be tried not by me, but by somebody else who may take a more severe view of the matter. This is one of my • last acts on this bench, and I should like it to be an act tempered with mercy. I am giving you your chance, and I want you to play the game.” Senior-Sergeant Turner said he understood Paltridge was addicted to drink. Mr. Tate advised Paltridge that if he were addicted to drink and if he found his friends pressed him to take more than he should, he should take a prohibition order against himself. « The Couid was doing its best to help him. Paltridge was urged to play the game like a- man by cutting out the drink altogether.- He had his chance now, though he would not find probation’ easy. r '. EVIDENCE RESUMED. ' When the hearing was. resumed yesterday morning Sergeant T. I. McGregor said that in consequence of .a disturbance at Waitara he and constables from New Plymouth hurried to Waitara on the morning of January 8. The bunkhouse at the works had been attacked with stones. Two motor-cycles had been damaged. In the evening Paltridge and a companion, Jock Roberts, called at the police station. He was interviewed concerning hi? movements on the previous evening and the damage to the cycle. Paltridge made a statement. He denied being at the freezing works during the trouble. West Quay was the nearest point he had been to the works, he said; he had been standing outside a fish shop. Roberts, then made a statemen, after which the sergeant again saw Paltridge and told him Roberts did not bear out what he (Paltridge) had stated. Roberts had said he saw Paltridge at the works during the trouble, and had joined him there after the trouble, and had gone home with him. Paltridge still denied he was at the works, but admitted he was by the old post office at the comer of Whittaker and Queen Streets. Roberts had joined him ’ there. Previously Paltridge had said he had known nothing of thd trouble at the works until the morning of January 8. When told that he had been seen ’at the freezing works by a man who knew him well, Paltridge asked the sergeant if the man could identify him. He was told that the man had no doubt about it, as he had known him for years. “That is going to make it hard for me,” said Paltridge ’“CAME HERE TO BLUFF.” “I suppose the mob will be thinking me a fool to come to the police station,” was another remark of his after he wap charged. • .“I’m sorry, now, that I did come, as I might not have been in this trouble.” The sergeant told him that the man who saw him smashing the cycle had no doubt about him. “Don’t you think, if I smashed the cycle, it’s funny that I should come to the police station?” said Paltridge. The sergeant: I don’t think it is funny at all. I take it you came here to bluff, to pretend you were innocent and had nothing to be afraid of. Paltridge: Yes, I suppose one could look on it in that way.

Things were looking bad for him, he added. He would say no more till he had consulted his solicitor. Senior-Sergeant Turner: It has been suggested it would take more than one man to’damage the cycle? Sergeant McGregor; I think it quite possible for one man. Mr. Sheat: But it is no part of your case that there was. only one man? The sergeant: I believe there was another man—smashing the other motorcycle; there were two cycles. Counsel: Do you know who the other man was? .

The sergeant: I prefer not to say. Counsel: You have your suspicions? The sergeant: We have hopes. Constable J. A. Tocher, Waitara, who arrested Paltridge on January 8 on a charge of wilful damage, said Paltridge was sitting in the office while the warrant and information were being prepared. He inquired if he was going to be arrested.

“More than likely,” replied the constable.

“That will make it a bit hot for me,” said Paltridge. He was later locked up.

Aat 12.15 a.m. on January 8, continued Constable Tocher, he noticed at the comer of ®est and McLeoa

Street a number of “strikers,” including Paltridge. Immediately he walked towards the station they left the corner and walked along West Quay towards the works. , ' PLEA OF GUILTY. This concluded the police evidence. After a short adjournment Mr. Sheat announced that Paltridge would plead guilty. He had discussed the matter with Paltridge and his mates, he said, and had taken the responsibility of reversing his plea to one of guilty. Council realised that in view of the evidence of the police officers he would be faced with an almost impossible task in upholding a plea of not guilty. Paltridge appreciated his serious position, said counsel in urging that the man should not be sent to prison. He suggested justice would not appear to be done by sending Paltridge to prison. One reason was that it was plain that he was not the only man involved. Sampson, the watchman, had said he actually saw another man damaging the other cycle. It was obvious another man was involved and that some of the men knew who it was but would not tell. There was somethii.j to admire in their attitude. If, however, Paltridge were sent to gaol he would be punished while others concerned in the trouble escaped. If he were admitted to probation his friends had promised they would stand by him and assist him to pay- the cost of the damage. Counsel was aware thatduring the past month or so Paltridge had been convicted of. intimidation, but he pointed out that at times like these, when feelings ran high, a young man of Paltridge’s spirits might do something that he would not do at another time. The magistrate: There were two machines damaged. Mr. Sheat: But only one is involved in this charge. The senior-sergeant said that on November 16 Paltridge was convicted of intimidation, sentence being deferred three months, and on November 24 he was convicted for a similar offence and fined £5 Is. Before the Court rose to resume after luncheon, the magistrate said he would say no more at the moment but that the plea of guilty enabled ’iim to consider what he could not have considered if he had had to find Paltridge guilty after a defence the Court could not believe. ' \