COAL STOLEN FROM RAILWAY

Taranaki Daily News, 14 February 1933, Page 2

COAL STOLEN FROM RAILWAY

TWO MEN CAUGHT AT EARLY HOUR. £1 FINE AND TERM OF PROBATION Thomas Gordon Graham and Arthur Edward Bland, the two men who were caught by the police removing coal from the Railway Department’s yards at New Plymouth early on Sunday morning, were fined £1 each and admitted to probation for six months by Messrs. E. C. Hayton and P. E. Stainton, justices of the peace, in the New Plymouth Police Court, yesterday. For some time the Railway Department had complained of thefts of coal, said Detective A. B. Meiklejohn. He and Detective P. Kearney and Constable An till kept a watch on Sunday morning. Graham and Bland came into the railway yard from Morley Street at 4.45 a.m. and took away two sacks of coal valued at 4s. They, were followed to a house in Young Street, where Detective Kearney spoke to them and they admitted taking the coal. They denied they had taken coal from the yard before. Graham and Bland were in poor circumstances, said Mr. A. A. Bennett in pleading guilty. Graham’s average earnings over the last 18 months were only £1 10s. a week, with which he had to support a wife and three children. Bland had done only three days’ work during the three months he had been at New Plymouth. Hard times were no excuse for thefts, the justices of the peace commented, in entering convictions.