YOUTH WARNED BY MAGISTRATE

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 145, 15 March 1939, Page 13

YOUTH WARNED BY MAGISTRATE

Admitted To Probation On Theft Charges

ACCUSED’S ALLEGATIONS AGAINST POLICE Au allegation that he was forced into making a statement in the detectives’ office, Wellington, concerning thefts committed in Marton, was made in the Magistrates’ Court, Wellington, yesterday by John Harry Quittenden, kitchen hand, aged IS, who pleaded not guilty to three charges of theft. After bearing evidence Mr. W. IfStilwell, S.M., said he was satisfied that statements made by accused and signed by him were made of his own free will? Quittenden was admitted to probation for IS months, a condition being that he obtained farm work in the vicinity of his own home. “I only hope this experience will be 11 lesson to you and that this sort of thing will stop,” said the magistrate. “If it does not there will be only one place where you will finish up, and that will be jail. Theft seems to be your main difficulty, but you are only a lad, and I am going to give you your final chance.”

Accused was charged with the theft of a shirt valued at 18/6, the property of James Nelson, and with the theft of £l/10/- in money, the property of Raymond Leslie Whittington. The offences were alleged to have been committed in Marton on February 18. Accused was also charged with the theft of a sheet valued at 5/-, the property of the New Zealand Government Railways.

Quittenden was employed by the Railways Department in Marton as a general hand for IS months, said De-tective-Sergeant P. Doyle. Complainants were also railway men, and it was alleged that the thefts were committed from rooms occupied by them and accused. Quittenden came under suspicion and when interviewed by the police in Wellington admitted the thefts.