THEFT FROM WARDER

Waipa Post, Volume 48, Issue 3479, 14 June 1934, Page 8

THEFT FROM WARDER

HARD LABOUR IMPOSED ON WAIKERIA INMATE. $

Sentence of one year's imprisonment with hard labour, concurrent with his present sentence, which will shortly expire, was imposed on James Porter, alias Jackie Coogan, by Mr Justice Fair in the Supreme Court at Hamilton on Tuesday. Porter had pleaded guilty to breaking and entering a warder's house at the Waikeria Borstal Institute and stealing various articles. After Porter had intimated that he had nothing to say, Mr H. T. Gillies, the Crown Solicitor, said there was something in favour of the accused which he felt bound to mention. Among the articles stolen were several sovereigns which were keepsakes of the warder's children. After his arrest the prisoner confessed to the theft of the sovereigns and showed the authorities a secret place where he had hidden them. " It is difficult to know what to do with you," commented His Honor. "Apparently you cannot keep from committing theft for longer than two years. You have been treated with great consideration by the courts and it r>eems that reformative detention will not cure you of the practice of theft. Same serious punishment is indicated to show you that you cannot continue to defy the law." His Honor referred to a long list of previous sentences dating from 1924.