SERIOUS OFFENCES

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 86, Issue 227, 26 September 1942, Page 3

SERIOUS OFFENCES

YOUNG MEN SENTENCED Wellington, Sept. 25. “It is a very said thing to see the two of you on the high road to crime. 1 want to deal with you in such a way as will give you a chance to re-estab-lish yourselves," said Mr. Justice Smith in the Supreme Court on Tuesday. when Gordon Robert Dunn, soldier and tinsmith, aged 21, and Reginald Michael Walsh, alias Richard Michael Smith, seaman, aged 21, appeared for sentence on a number of charges. The prisoners had pleaded guilty to three charges of burglary, eight charges of housebreaking, and one charge of robbery with violence, and Walsh had admitted another charge ol housebreaking. Remarking on the grave nature of the offences, His Honour said that although he was not satisfied that the robberv with violence was premeditated. it was nevertheless a very serious crime. Dunn had had previous convictions and a term in Borstal. Walsh was really to be regarded as a first offender and he would be given a chance of discipline and supervision after he left confinement in a Borstal institution. For robbery with violence Dunn was sentenced to reformative detention for a period not exceeding three years, for burglary the same period, and for housebreaking reformative detention not exceeding two years, the terms to be concurrent. Walsh was ordered to be detained in a Borstal institution for a term of two years. Mr. W. H. Cunningham appeared for the Crown. The prisoners appeared latir in the Magistrate’s Court before ifr. J. L. Stout, S.M.. and were convicted and discharged on four joint charges of car conversion and four of theft.