SHOPLIFTING ALLEGED PREVALENT JUST NOW IN WHAKATANE

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 12, Issue 11, 9 January 1948, Page 4

SHOPLIFTING ALLEGED PREVALENT JUST NOW IN WHAKATANE

One Offender Gaoled: Stern Warning Issued Prosecuting in a shoplifting case in the Police Court at WhaIcatane on Wednesday, Constable R. F. Julian told Messrs I. B. Hubbard and C. H. Christensen J’s P. that all the shopkeepers in the town had been complaining of serious shoplifting, allegedly by groups of Maoris. The method used, he said he had been told, was for one of the group to engage the counter hand in conversation whilst his friends stole whatever took their eyes.

The man before the Court was Benny Mokai, of Paroa, who pleaded guilty to stealing four pullovers valued at £l2 10s from Mr A. H. Morpeth’s shop on New Year’s Eve. He was sentenced to one month’s imprisonment at the local gaol, and a warning was' issued from the Bench that the business community must be protected against this class of offender, and further cases would be met with the maximum penalty of six months’ gaol. - ' • According to the police evidence, Mokai went into the shop about 2 p.m. on New Year’s Eve, and helped himself to a blue pullover off a display stand. He came back about 6.15 p.m. and stole three more, which he dropped when the shop assistant accosted him later. He still had the biue one when he was arrested.. Mokai’s explanation was naive. He said he had been drinking. After he stole the blue pullover he went home. Then he came back to town and “thought it was so easy” that he took the other three. After that he went into a fish shop and had a meal.

There it was that conscience hit him. He began to realise he had done something wrong. He came out after his meal with the intention of replacing the pullovers, but when the man from the shop accosted him he got frightened, dropped his plunder, and bolted. Gaol For Theft Paul Francis Beals, of Hastings, is spending a month in the Whakatane gaol. He pleaded guilty in the Police Court on Tuesday to the theft of a three-piece suit and overcoat, total value £l2, from a fellow boarder in a Hamilton accommodation house on October 17 last. Messrs I. B. Hubbard and S. S. Shapley heard the case presented by Constable R. F. Julian and fixed the penalty. Beals was ordered to restore the suit coat and tiousers. The other garments wqre missing.