IN DOCK FOR THEFT

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIII, Issue 124, 28 May 1942, Page 5

IN DOCK FOR THEFT

WOMAN AND SOLDIER

BOTH SEXT TO PRISON*

Both the accused have formidable lists and the young woman is rather a menace to the community.'' said Detective-Sergeant Trethewev in the Police Court yesterday, when Claude Kavmond Lewis, a soldier, aged 29 and Jean Alfreda Kathleen Yates' aged 20, appeared in the dock. J b. e >" jointly charged with I °, n - Ia ~* 13 a fur coat valued a t 114 while Lewis, alone, was further charged with the theft of a suit worth a 4 belonging to a secondhand dealer on the same date. Both pleaded guilty.

Detective-Sergeant Trethewey said L«wis, who was absent without leave from camp, was walking along Hobson Street on Msy 13 with Yates w-hen he took a suit from the front of a shop. Both were under the influence of liquor. Lewis later tried to dispose of the suit at another second-hand shop, but was ordered out. He dropped the suit under a vehicle. On the same date Lewis went with Yates to a friend's house in Ireland Street, from where a fur coat was stolen. Lewis endeavoured to dispose of the fur coat at two other shops, but was unsuccessful. Se\ eral days later Lewis was apprehended by military po'ice and taken back to camp. He still had the coat with him. but afterwards gave it to "iates, who was wearing it when she was arrested.

Mr. Noble, who appeared for Yates, described her as a woman of dull intellect who had been led astray. Lewis told the magistrate that he was drunk when the thefts were committed and that he had not been in trouble for theft for some years. Mr. F. H. Levien, S.M.. sentenced Lewis to three momhs' imprisonment on each charge, the terms to be cumulative. Yates was sentenced to two months' imprisonment.