ELDERLY MAN GAOLED FOR RECEIVING STOLEN HANDBAG

Grey River Argus, 11 August 1948, Page 4

ELDERLY MAN GAOLED FOR RECEIVING STOLEN HANDBAG

P.A. GISBORNE, August 10. Found guilty by :a jury .in the Supreme Court on a charge of re ceiving a handtag and the contents, Robert Grant Westaby, aged 74, a pensioner, was sentenced by Mr Justice Cornish this afternoon to IS months’ hard labour. Westaby wa-‘ found not guilty on a charge o stealing the handbag. Evidence showed that Mrs I. V Sharp, of Melbourne, on a trair journey from Wellington' to Gisborne on May 21, left a handbag hanging in a carriage at Napier while she obtained a cup of tea. During that time- the bag disappeared. At Wairoa the accused was caught walking or. the wrong side of the train, and on being searched, most of the missing articles from the handbag were found in his pockets. The accused, who conducted his own defence, denied having taker the handbag and contents, wnicb he claimed to have found in the train lavatory. Henry Agust Harrison, aged 20, a labourer, of Waipiro Bay, was found guilty of a charge of carnal knowledge on October 4. The prisoner was remanded for sentence.