ARMED BURGLARS.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20625, 28 May 1935, Page 6

ARMED BURGLARS.

Will be Severely Dealt With. Per Press Association. AUCKLAND, May 27. The statement that so long as he was on the Bench he intended to deal severely with men who committed burglary and carried loaded weapons, was made by Mr Justice Reed at the Supreme Court, when sentencing Henry Lewis Brennan on three charges of breaking and entering. His Honor said that New Zealand was not going to have conditions which sometimes existed in Australia, where burglars carried arms. Brennan had pleaded guilty to breaking into two private homes in daylight and one at night. On one occasion he was accompanied by William Houston, who also admitted the offence. Mr McVeagh, for Brennan, said that Brennan had experienced difficulty in obtaining employment. His Honor: What makes the offences most serious is that on one occasion he stole a revolver and ammunition. That is bad enough, but what is still more serious is that he admits carrying a revolver fully loaded into the next place he broke into. His Honor said that counsel had advanced all that could possibly be said for Brennan. Although he had not been previously convicted on any serious offence, those which he had now admitted were sufficiently serious to preclude leniency. He sentenced prisoner to three years’ hard labour on a burglary charge at Remuera and to eighteen months’ hard labour on two other charges, the sentences to be concurrent. I-louston was sentenced to eighteen months’ hard labour to be followed by six months’ reformative detention.