“PROSECUTION WAS OUT OF SPITE.”

Star (Christchurch), Issue 19240, 29 November 1930, Page 9

“PROSECUTION WAS OUT OF SPITE.”

FATHER TELLS STRANGE STORY TO THE COURT. After a sixteen-year-old boy had been fined five shillings in the Children’s Court this morning, the father got up and told the Magistrate that in his opinion the prosecution was a grudge one, pursued by the owner of the flowers which the boy admitted stealing. “I saw this gentleman,” said the father, “and said how sorry I was that my boy had stolen his prize pansies, and he said that that was all right, and asked me to bring my wife round to see his pansies. I had only met him twice before. He offered a prize to the sports club, and it was decided to refuse it. I, as a matter of fact, favoured accepting the trophy, but when it was decided not to, I as secretary had to write and tell him. I have an idea that he held a grudge against me over that, and this is the result. I thought he was taking no further action in the matter.” The police said that the boy, in company with another, had stolen some pansies, valued at about two shillings, from the garden of a neighbour. The owner claimed that the flowers were worth at least twenty shillings. The boy had been lead astray by the elder boy. “What did you do with the flowers?” asked Mr H. P. Lawry, S.M., who with Mrs T. E. Taylor, J.P., and Mr W. M. West, J.P., was on the Bench. “We took’ them for buttonholes,” was the reply. “We will take a week’s pocket money from you to impress on you that this sort of thing is no good,” said the Magistrate.