THEFTS AT QUARRY

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20112, 5 December 1939, Page 13

THEFTS AT QUARRY

POLICE KEPT WATCH young men captured PLACED ON PROBATION "You are getting the benefit of the First Offenders’ Probation Act. and if there is any repetition of these offences you will be treated differently,” said Mr. A. Coleman, S.M.. in the Police Court yesterday, when placing two young men, Frederick Allen 1-lurno, aged 24, and Percy Donald Green, aged 22, on probation for one year. They were ordered to make restitution amounting to Ms each and to pay £1 9s costs between them. The defendants had been remanded until yesterday when they appeared before the court last Thursday on a series of charges of stealing a piece of rubber hose, a bucket, 12 gallons of petrol, a draw knife, spanner, piece of wire netting, rubber cape, and hacksaw, to a total value of £3 Lis 6d. There were five charges against Hurne and three against Green.

Caught Siphoning Petrol

The prosecution was conducted by Senior-Sergeant J. F. H. Macnamara, and Mr. M. R. Maude appeared for Hurne and Green, who pleaded guilty to all the charges.

Senior-Sergeant Macnamara said a complaint that he had been losing articles from his workshop at tiie Patutahi quarry was received from Carl Buscke and a watch was kept for a week. At midnight on November 30 two men drove up to the quarry and went into the shed where the lorry was kept. Buscke and Constable L. Allen approached and caught the defendants starting to siphon petrol from the tank of the lorry. The two then admitted a list of offences on various dates.

Mr. Maude said that the two defendants were staying with Hume’s parents and each had a mechanical turn of rnind. The unfortunate fact was that they were trying to operate a car they could not afford to run. Their appearance in court would be a lesson that they would not forget and lie asked that they be treated with leniency in view of the fact that they were first offenders.