INCOME AUGMENTED

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLV, Issue 21089, 15 July 1938, Page 8

INCOME AUGMENTED

PROCEEDS FROM THEFT lelegia: r< •• • AUCKLAND, July 14. "This man has been received an average income of £2/18/- a week from the proceeds of these offences," said De-tective-Sergeant McHugh in tiie Magistrate’s Court when a labourer Albert Edward Butler, aged 33, appeared before Mr C. R. Orr-Walker S.M. The accused, who was not represented by counsel, was charged with stealing quantities of copper and copper wire valued at £l6l the property of the Waitemata Electric Power Board. A similar charge alleged to have occurred one June 25 and involving a sum ot £l/12 51 was also- preferred. Edward Gilbert Rowntree, purchasing officer employed by the Waitemata Electric Power Board, said one of his duties was to authorise the sale ot scrap copper on behalf of the board. From April or May of last year scrap copper had been missing from the depot where it was stored at Hender-

The director of a city firm said he had bought copper wire and scrap from the accused at various dates. On several occasions he had asked accused the source from which he had obtained the copper, and each time the accused had told him it had been honestly obtained by purchase. “As the evidence shows this young man has received an aggregate sum of £162/18/5 from selling stolen copper,” said Detective-Sergeant McHugh. "He is a married man and attributes his lapses to betting. He has no previous convictions.” The accused, who pleaded guilty to both charges, was committed to the Supreme Court for sentence in respect of the charge involving the sum of £l6l, and on the second charge was convicted and ordered to come up for sentence if called upon within 13 months. Bail was not allowed.