LOOTING AFTERMATH.

Waikato Times, Volume 111, Issue 18622, 28 April 1932, Page 6

LOOTING AFTERMATH.

GUILTY OF RECEIVING. AUCKLAND RIOTS SEQUEL. MAN IMPRISONED FOR SIX WEEKS. An echo of the recent Auckland riots was 'heard In Hamilton to-day, when Thomas Frederick Perry, aged 39 years, described as a native of Australia, was sentenced to six weeks’ Imprisonment by Mr Wyvern Wilson, S.M., for receiving stolen goods. Perry pleaded guilty in the Magistrate’s Court this morning to receiving 'from some persons unknown at Auckland on April 26, a lady’s gold wristlet watch, valued at £2, knowing it to have been dishonestly obtained. Detective-Sergeant J. Thompson said the Hamilton police received information on Tuesday that the accused -was trying to sell a lady’s wristlet watch in Hamilton. While Perry was being escorted to the police 'Station under arrest for drunkenness, be dropped a match-box on the footpath, which contained the wristlet watch. Accused denied all knowledge of it, but later told Constable Aplin that he knew of an amount of stolen jewellery which would surprise Detectives Thompson and White if they knew about it. , Subsequently the accused admitted when interviewed that the watch was obtained by looting in the recent Auckland riots. Lived In a Tent. He then made a statement in which he said he had been ltvins in a tent at the Hamilton motor camp. He had been in Hamilton about a month, making artificial llowers. He went to Auckland on April 22, returning to Hamilton on Tuesday. He met a man whose name he did not wish to divulge who gave him the watch, saying lie picked it up in the street at the time of the riot. Accused added he received nothing else from the man or from anyone else. “ So far as we can ascertain Perry was not in Auckland at the time of tho riots," said Mr Thompson. "He Is an associate of showmen and is not a stranger to the Court.” He added that the accused had four previous convictions since 1920, for assault, wilful damage, obscene, language and vagrancy respectively. The accused: This is the first and only time I have had any dealings with anything dishonest, Your Worship. “ This man is evidently hand-in-glove with those who perpetrated thefts at the time of the Auckland riots,” said the magistrate, imposing sentence. " I would have made the sentence less had you not shown a disposition to shield others.”