SHOPLIGTING

Hokitika Guardian, 24 December 1930, Page 7

SHOPLIGTING

TWO WOMEN FINED, AUCKLAND, December 22. “Why on earth they did it goodness only knows. 1 cannot understand it,” said Mr Hogben in the Police Curt when two sisters, Sarah Martin Gillespie, aged thirty-five, and Jessie Barclay Dunn, aged forty-four, were charged with .shoplifting. Sarah Gillespie pleaded guilty to stealing a pair of gloves, a pair of stockings, a cake of soap, a box of face-powder, a salt cellar and a face cloth', while Jessie Dunn admitted stealing a box of powder and a cake of soap. “The accused are sisters and live together,” said Mr Hogben. “They went to town to walk round the shops, the only form of cheap entertainment avail able to some women. Mrs Dunn was an honest woman, for when she received a £lO note in mistake for £1 note recently she immediately took it back.) The Magistrate (Mr F. K. Hunt): I wish this shop would put wire netting over its goods. The only way to stop shoplifting is to give offenders fourteen days’ imprisonment. Counsel: These women have had good characters until now. Ihe Magistrate: Everybody has a good character until he loses it. They are fined £5 each, in default a month’s imprisonment. They are very lucky they do not go to gaol.

An application for the suppression of the women’s names was refused.