HAT STOLEN FROM CLUB

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 86, Issue 229, 29 September 1942, Page 3

HAT STOLEN FROM CLUB

HOW OWNER ASSISTED POLICE LABOURER SENT TO PRISON How a hat stolen from the Commercial Club on the evening of September 22 was recognised by the owner next day, as the man wearing it entered an hotel, was told in the Magistrate’s Court. Wanganui, yesterday, when Peter McDonald,' labourer, aged 42, was charged before Mr. J. H. Salmon, S.M., with receiving a hat valued at 30s, the property of F. J. Hill, knowing it to have been dishonestly obtained. Accused pleaded not guilty to the ■charge, but was convicted and sentenced to a month in prison. The magistrate commented that he had a 'bad record of previous convictions. Senior-Sergeant F. Culloty prosecuted, and accused was charged also with stealing the hat and an overcoat valued at £5 10s, but this charge was dismissed. Frederick Joseph Hill said in evidence that he visited the Commercial Club at 5 p.m. on September 22 and left his hat and overcoat at the foot of the stairs. When he returned for the articles at 6.15 they were missing. He reported the matter, but a search of the club failed 1o reveal any trace of his property. Next day he called at the Central Police Station, Bell Street, and on coming away saw a man with a hat similar to his own entering the Albion Hotel. Witness subsequently entered the hotel by another door, found accused in a small lounge off the private bar, and identified the hat as his own. When asked what he was doing with the hat, accused said he had taken it by mistake from the Grand Hotel. He was not drunk, but suffering from a “fairly heavy hang-over.”

A statement made by McDonald at Central Police Station that morning was read by Constable H. R. Hawke. Accused stated that he was a single man employed by the Public Works Department. He came to Wanganui on September 14 1o snend a few days with a man named Frank Reid, and had been on a drinking bout. Reid gave him the hat on the night of September 22, but did not say where he had got it from. Accused added that he slept on the river bank, near the Town Bridge, that night. He knew nothing about the overcoat. Recalled by Senior-Sergeant Culloty to give further evidence, Hill said he did not think the hat looked as though “it had been out all night.” Senior-Sergeant Culloty added that. Reid, when interviewed by lhe Palmerston North police, had’ denied all knowledge of having given the hat to

accused. When a person was found in possession of stolen property he must

satisfy the Court that he had come by it honestly, said the magistrate. Accused must have seen the name “F. J. Hill” inside the hat. “I think that in your condition vou were careless as to whose property it was,” the magistrate added.