SHOP-LIFTING

Hokitika Guardian, 7 April 1930, Page 6

SHOP-LIFTING

■ -*sßßfete —~~ BARRISTER’S WIFE CHARGED

LONDON, February 7

Alany fashionably-dressed women crowded the Court at London Sessions, yesterday, when A'lrs Doris Gardiner, a-, barrister’s.... wife, of. Shelley Court, Tite' street, Chelsea, pleaded guilty to charges of theft at a A\ T est End store. Airs Gardiner sat in the dock weeping silently, and resting her head against a wardress beside her. When Sir Robert Wallace, K.C., said he would postpone sentence, Airs Gardiner fainted, and had to he carried out.

'l’lie woman, who is 39, was said to have stolen three gowns, valued at £32. She was seen to go through one or two of . the store’s departments • without buying anything, and eventually she lelt carrying one of the firm’s boxes.

When the theft was discovered, Airs Gardiner, at the store, said, “Oh, dear, what a fool I have been. “You will try to do your best for me.” A tragic and pathetic story of Airs Gardiner’s life was told by Ah Eustace Fulton, who defended. From childhood, said Air. Fulton, sne bad been in habit of making small thefts. At the age of seven she stole other children’s toys and. was thrashed bv her father.

There was a normal period of about live years arid when she was 13 at a convent school she took another girl’s property. There was another normal period of 5 years, and at 17 she went to another school, where exactly the same thing happened. Then, in 1914, she stole from a shop at Manchester. She was bound over.

UNHAPPY AIARRIAGE

She was examined by a doctor, rapidly recovered, and was apparently quite normal again. In 1916 Afrs Gardiner was married. It was an exceedingly unhappy marriage, and resulted in her divorcing her husband in 1925. She later married again. At the end of 1925 she had two very serious internal operations, and in 1926 she stole again, and was sent to prison for six months.

Returning to her husband her conduct was again perfectly normal, until, mt the end of last year, she gave birth to a. child.

| Mrs Gardiner was sent to Holloway | Prison to be kept under mental ohIservation.