BREAKING AND ENTERING

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3084, 15 May 1917, Page 9

BREAKING AND ENTERING

Myrtle Harvey, a middle-age woman, was charged with breaking an entering the Family Hotel, at Otak and stealing therefrom five bottles < beer, twro'of whisky, two of claret, ti\ of sherry, two of port, a torkscrev and two koys, of the total value < £3 7s. ■Mr. Mncassey said that the accuse was employed as a servant at th Family Hotel, Otaki, and was dismiss ed on the day beforo tho alleged offenc was committed. On the night of Marc 15, the barman closed up the bar a usual. In tho morning he found tha tho door and window had been broke open, and that liquor Lad been talcei away. A man called Sharp noticed th accused, some distance down the road putting some bottles under her coat Ho went to the place- whore ho ha< seen hor, and thero found some liquor which ho later took back to ihn liotol Sharp and a companion named Gilibon followed the accused, end saw her after passing the cemetery, tit dowi and drink some beer. Questioned b , tho men, she- said a fat Maori ha< given tht> beer to her. A ronstabh charged tlio accused with theft of tin liquor. She denied tho charge. Tin constablo asked her whero the koys oi the storeroom were, and 'ho replied that she did not know. The conslabli found the keys in her pocket a fow moments later. The accused entered the witness box, where she persisted in her statement that she had received tho property from a "big, ,, fat Maori." , Under cross-examination she admitV t«l that sho had been many limes .convicted of vagrancy and drunkenness, and once of theft. Afler a seventeen-niimites , retirement the jury returned a verdict of guilty, together with a recomniondntion that the accused be sent to a. lomo for reformation. Prisoner was sentenced tx> Iwo years' imprisonment with hard labour. The Court further ordered her to be detained for reformative purposes for a period of fivo years.