LOST CAR RECOVERED

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20078, 26 October 1939, Page 13

LOST CAR RECOVERED

MAORI YOUTH IN COURT TOO YOUNG FOR BORSTAL The theft of a late model coupe car that was reported to have been taken on Thursday evening from Bright street, resulted in the appearance yesterday afternoon, before Mr. J. H. Luxford, S.M. in the Children’s Court, of a Mi-year-old Maori boy, who was charged with a series of offences. He was admonished and discharged on all charges and returned to the care of the Child Welfare Superintendent to be given help in the institution.

The youth was charged with the unlawful conversion of a horse, valued at £5, at Tolaga Bay, and pleaded not guilty to that information. He pleaded guilty to the unlawful conversion on Tuesday evening of a car valued at £322, the property of Bert Lowe, and with committing mischief on the same date by damaging registration plates valued at 2s, the property of Bert Lowe.

Senior-Sergeant J. F. H. Macnamara, who prosecuted, said that the boy had been before the court on October 9 on a charge of unlawfully converting to his own use a car, and had been placed under the supervision of the Child Welfare Officer. The accused had absconded from the employment that had been found for him and was soon connected with the conversion of the second car. He was arrested at Te Karaka. It was found that he had cut the last number off the registration plate in an endeavour to hide its identity, and explained that serious damage to one of the doors had been caused by a horse rolling on it.

The boy explained to His Worship that he had intended to live an honest life, but that some boys had got him drunk and he had not realised what he was doing.

Mr. Luxford explained that as the youth was only 14 years and 11 months old he was too young by a month to be sent to Borstal, otherwise he would have been committed to that institution for three years. He was still a ward of the State and would be sent back to an institution that would help him to rpake an effort to improve himself. If he were able to do that, he would be given his freedom once more.