Roving Romeo Found In Girl’s Bedroom Gets One Month’s Jail

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 11, Issue 94, 31 October 1947, Page 5

Roving Romeo Found In Girl’s Bedroom Gets One Month’s Jail

A month’s detention in the local Jail was the penalty Nepia Mate, 36-year-old labourer, earned. for himself by an unlawful intrusion in a woman’s bedroom at Poroporo in the early hours of the morning of October 26. According to what Sergeant M. Farrell, who prosecuted, told Messrs C. S. Armstrong and S. S. Shapley, J’s P., in the Police Court at Whakatane on Tuesday, a Maori girl .. aged 26 had been awakened just before daylight by some one’s hand on her knee. The window, which had been closed when she went to bed was open and the door still locked. She recognised Mate, who went ■away when she spoke to him and .sat down outside to put on his,boots. The girl called her mother, but the intruder bolted. Mate pleaded guilty to the charge •of being rogue and a vagabond in that he was found unlawfully on enclosed premises by night and elected to be dealt with summarily. He said he had been drunk at the time, but there was no evidence on that point. Sergeant Farrell said the police had had a lot of complaints recently about nocturnal prowlers frightening people. Addressing the defendant, Mr Armstrong said the question of people prowling about at night was •causing grave concern in the dis- , trict, and it was a thing that have to be stopped. He warned that if he repeated the offence Mate would probably find himself in Mt. .Eden.