CAMPED IN DRAIN

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 6, Issue 80, 11 June 1943, Page 5

CAMPED IN DRAIN

ABSENTEE FROM CAMP

YOUNG MAORI SOLDIKR FIXKI3

"He is about the worst soldier that has ever been sent to camp," said Sergeant Farrell when describing Wiremu Ratapu Te Moni who appeared before Messrs G. A. Brabant and J. G. Mulholland, J.P's, in the Whakatane Court yesterday on a charge of wilful damage to Government property and mischief. The Sergeant then went on to explain how the accused who was a member of the armed forces had twice broken away from camp and had been arrested in this district. On the previous occasion while lodged in the Whakatane gaol he had thrown his eating utensils out the window and deliberately unscrewed the tops of the taps to the hot and cold water service and fhrown them away also. He hail been taken back to camp but escaped the same night and again made his way back® to his home at Paroa. The police had kept w ? atch for him for some time and at last arrested him on Tuesday. He was, now awaiting military escort to take him back to camp again. Te Moni who in spite of his twenty-one years had quite a substantial police list, pleaded guilty. Sergeant Farrell describing the circumstances of the arrest, said that accused had been discovered living in a drain over grown with blue gum trees, about a mile from his home. With his wife he had camped there on a mattress lowered into a side culvert. There was, an assorted collection of pots and pans and many empty tins. How they weathered some of the frosts which have, been experienced of late may be imagined. As he stood in the dock Te Mom's bedraggled appearance certainly seemed to bear out the life he had been leading. He was lined Ids and despatched back to camp.