UNLAWFUL USE

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume 53, Issue 32414, 31 March 1944, Page 3

UNLAWFUL USE

MAN IN ARMY UNIFORM * OFFICER’S BADGES UP > WEEK’S PRISON FOR OFFENDER A decision to send a man to prison to enable him to be properly clothed was made' by Mr W. H. Freeman, S.M., in the Thames Magistrate’s Court to-day. Accused was wearing a military uniform to which he was not entitled. “If I let him go he is committing an offence by wearing a uniform. I shall sentence him to imprisonment for seven days to enable him to be fixed up,” said the magistrate. Sergeant W. N. Ferguson said that as the uniform was the only clothing accused had available it had not been possible for the police to take it from him in the meanwhile. Two Charges John Charles Lawn, aged 22, labourer, of no fixed abode, who was remanded yesterday, appeared on a charge of unlawfully converting to his own use, but not so as to be guilty of theft, a motor-cycle valued at £35, the property of Joseph Arthur Llewell at Thames on March 17, and on a further charge of unlawfully wearing’a military uniform and emblem of Tils Majesty’s New Zealand Forces. Accused was wearing some of the uniform in Court. Accused pleaded guilty to both charges. Sergeant Ferguson said' on March 16 accused borrowed the cycle from complainant at Miranda on condition that it was returned at 6 p.m. that day. However, accused left the cycle in Thames with another man. Complainant reported the matter to the police on March 24 and the cycle was recovered the next day. Accused was a member of the forces for two years and was discharged in 1942 because of an accident, said the Sergeant. Since that date he had been living and working around Henderson. He said he had been told to keep the uniform for Home Guard purposes and had retained it since. Accused had been wearing the badges of a second-lieutenant, which he had picked up in camp, in and around Miranda. “What is he doing now?” asked the Magistrate. Sergeant Ferguson said accused had recently injured his knee and had been in hospital. He was not doing anything. Nothing was previously known against him. “It is not like a case of picking up a car from the street and getting away with,” said the Magistrate of the conversion charge, on which accused, was convicted and ordered to come up for sentence in six months if called upon. On the charge of unlawfully wearing the uniform he was sentenced I to seven days’ imprisonment.