APPALLING RECORDS

Dominion, Volume 37, Issue 193, 13 May 1944, Page 8

APPALLING RECORDS

Men Who Stole £4OO Worth From House PRISONERS SENTENCED “Both you men have appalling records,” said Mr. Justice Blair when sentencing in the Supreme Court, Wellington, yesterday Frederick George thllllp Lester, seaman and labourer, aged 39, and Harold George Knox, labourer, aged 33, for breaking and entering a house in Thompson Street anil stealing from it £400» worth of goods. “The breaking into the dwelling In Thompson Street, was an impudent and well-planned affair, carried out by men who are masters of their craft, their craft being the crime of breaking and entering. There are no redeeming features. Only a trivial amount had been recovered, and no doubt the rest had been successfully disposed of and both knew where It had gone. Lester’s record extended back to 1921 when he was aged 18 and include! nine charges of dishonesty or assamt. Knox, who was before him for sentence for two callous thefts from landladies who had taken him .in, had been convicted 12 times for dishonesty. Both bad fully qualified for the Indeterminate sentence of the habitual criminal, but they had not received the usual warning of that, so he would give that warning with the sentence, which would be .three years’ hard labour each for the Thompson Street occurrence. Knox was sentenced to three months’ Imprisonment for each of the two thefts, to be concurrent with each other and cumulative on the longer sentence. Mr. G. I. Joseph appeared for Lester and Mr. J. D. Willis for Knox. Four years’ hard labour was the sentence imposed on Edward Robert Kellett, labourer and soldier, aged 31, convicted of attempted rape, his Honour pointing out that prisoner had been sentenced to terms totalling five years for assault with intent to commit rape in 1933. The sentence would have been seven years but for the consideration that ho had stayed round and assisted the woman he had attacked. Mr. R. W. Burnard appeared for prisoner. Ronald Edward Brian Fea, electrical worker, aged 21, and Archibald Banks, chemist, aged 31, appeared for sentence on a charge of breaking, entering and theft, and Robert Paul Tungett, garage attendant, aged 44, appeared with them for receiving stolen goods. His Honour said they had gone on a wholesale warehousebreaking- expedition. Fea and Banks were sentenced to six months’ reformative detention and Tungett to 12 months’ reformative detention. Mr; E. S. Tuckwell appeared for Fea. Mr. F. W. Ongley for Banks, and Mr. W. J. Staeey for Tungett. George Cyril Lawson, taxi-driver, aged 40, for whom Mr. T. G. Taylor appeared, was admitted to three years’ probation for theft.

Probation for two years was allowed In the case of John Colston, labourer, aged 34, who had pleaded guilty to breaking, entering and theft and had been found guilty of theft. Though prisoner had a record, he appeared, to have bad an unfortunate life and nothing had been heard of him since 1038, said his Honour. Colston’s counsel was Mr. Taylor. Thomas Henry Blundell, carpenter, aged 35, was admitted to probation for three years on a charge of being a rogue and a vagabond. Illg Honour remarked that prisoner was getting too lazy to work and was the first real rogue he bad seen.