“LED BAD LIFE”

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 85, Issue 188, 12 August 1941, Page 7

“LED BAD LIFE”

YOUNG MAN BEFORE COURT FALSE PRETENCES CHARGE REPRESENTED HIMSELF AS AUSTRALIAN BOXER “This man has led a bad life; he is the class of man who plays upon some section of the public. He has also a long list of previous convictions,’’ said | the Bench in the Wanganui Magistrate’s Court yesterday, when sentencing Samuel Henry Coley for failing to enrol under the National Service Regulations and for false pretences. For failing to enrol Coley was fined £2O, in default three months’ imprisonment. and on the false pretences charge Tie was sentenced to three months' imprisonment by Messrs. P. Lewis and J. P. Laird, J.P.’s. The sentences will be cumulative if the tine is not paid. On a charge of theft of clothing, valued at £35 in Auckland, Coley was remanded to appear in Auckland on August 18. The false pretences charge was that he obtained 10s from A, G. Watson, Palmerston North, £1 from D. I. Favell, Palmerston North, by representing that he was an Australian boxer, Mickey Miller, that his manager. Jack Crowley, was in Palmerston North in April last, and that he was under engagement to receive £7OO for two fights with Vic. Caltaux. ! Det .-live-Sergeant J. K. Robertson appeared for the police and Mr. C. L. Treadwell for Coley. Detective-Sergeant Robertson said that Coley went from Auckland to Wellington and Palmerston North, going under the name of Mickey Miller. In Palmerston North he made himself acquainted with complainants, Watson and Favell. Coley borrowed money from them. At the time his hand was bandaged, so that complainants did not have the opportunity of seeing him in action as a boxer.

He had married in Auckland under the name of Mickey Miller, before going to Wellington, and had lived > with his wife only a short time, said I the detective-sergeant. He was discovered in Wanganui by Constable Gardner in April, at the Wanganui Public Hospital, where he went under the name of L. Walker, and naturally it was some time before he was located. He had received an injury to a hip or spine, and had been in hospital since, only being discharged on Sunday.

Mr. C. F. Treadwell said it was hard to understand how easily duped some people were, and it would have been a simple matter to have made a few inquiries. The complainants only deserved what they got. Coley, after arriving in Wanganui, was knocked down by a motor-car and had been in hospital since. On the charge of failure to enrol, Senior-Sergeant F. Culloty stated that Coley was in prison from May, 1940, to March. 1941, and could have enrolled in gaol. He had since en-