GUILTY OF THEFT

Taranaki Daily News, 28 November 1934, Page 3

GUILTY OF THEFT

“CONFIDENCE AND EGOTISM.”

NEW PLYMOUTH MAN GAOLED.

“Your counsel, Mr. St. L. Reeves, has made a strong appeal for probation but I am unable to accede to the request,” said Mr. W. H. Woodward, S.M., in the New Plymouth Court yesterday when he sentenced William Frank Nutsford to two months’ imprisonment on a charge of false pretences and to two months’ imprisonment on each of four charges of theft, the sentences to be concurrent. “You impress me as a young man of unbounded self confidence and egotism,” said Mr. Woodward. ' “You seem to think you were quite right in doing this, and it is my duty to give your confidence in crime a rude check.

“You must not be confident that you can break the law and victimise other people. You have committed a series of not large but premeditated thefts and fraud, and have worked on a system. I have -no doubt that you would have continued doing so as long as you remained undetected. I regret that I cannot give you' probation and I also regret that I have not found you truthful.” He wanted to give Nutsford a chance, said the magistrate in passing sentence, and he felt that by sending him to prison instead of ordering probation he would not be burdening Nutsford with the responsibility of making restitution. When released he would be a free man. He hoped the term would serve as a sharp lesson. DRUNKENNESS CHARGE. OFFENCE FOLLOWS FIT OF “BLUES.” "I am not what you can call a drinking man,” said Charles Donald Hoskin, who pleaded guilty in the New Plymouth Court yesterday to a charge of being found drunk in Devon Street at 5.30 p.m. on Monday. He had not had a drink for two months. He was a returned soldier and lived alone. On this occasion he had a fit of the blues and the liquor he had taken went to his head. He asked that no prohibition order be made against him.

Senior-Sergeant Turner said Hoskin had a list of previous convictions for drunkenness.

“If you come up again I will seriously consider making an order against you,’ said Mr. Woodward in inflicting a fine of 10s.