TEN DAYS OF VAGRANCY DESCRIBED

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 16, Issue 7, 13 October 1950, Page 5

TEN DAYS OF VAGRANCY DESCRIBED

Ten days of vagrancy with night raids and thefts, were described to the Whakatane Court yesterday. Before Messrs H. G. Warren and C. H. Brebner, J’s. P., Jimmy Kereopa, aged 18, a farm worker, was charged that he was deemed to be an idle and disorderly person in that he had insufficient lawful means of support; that on September 30, he stole meat valued at 7/-, butter valued at 2/-, a leather jacket valued at 15/-, the property of Alfred James Cropp; on October 3 stole a gaberdine overcoat valued at £4 and a scarf valued at 2/6, the property of Alison D. Low; stole foodstuffs valued at 6/10|d the property of Cyril L. Remnant. He pleaded guilty to all charges and elected to be dealt with summarily. He was convicted and sentenced to 14 days’ imprisonment. The defendant had been a ward of the State, said Senior-Sergeant Fuller and, under the supervision of the State had worked on a Whakatane farm. He had taken it into his head to “take to the hills” and had used the Legion of Frontiersmen’s hut as a headquarters, living a vagrant’s life. For 10 days, he stole food and goods in night raids. There could easily have been more charges. He had caused the police a lot of trouble. He had kept a lookout at the hut and had taken to the bush when he had seen the police coming.

In some ways, he was slightly sub-normal. He had led a “merry dance” for no real reason. The State had now washed its hands of him as he had turned 18. His parents wer at Taumarunui. “You are only a lad. The way you are heading, you’ll end in Mount Eden,” the boy was told by the Court. He was advised to try and pull himself together while in the local lock-up.