FIVE MONTHS’ GAOL.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVII, Issue 178, 29 June 1937, Page 12

FIVE MONTHS’ GAOL.

CHARGES OP THEFT,

Allegations of the theft of five overcoats from where they had been left hanging in four different hotels in Palmerston North were made in the Magistrate’s Court, yesterday, against Patrick Ernest Furlong Collins, a labourer, aged 62, when he appeared before Air J. L. Stout, S.M. Accused was charged with the thefts, on June 23, of ail overcoat valued at £4 los, the property of H. P. Alortensen; of an overcoat the property of some person unknown; of an overcoat valued at £l, the property of Isabel AlacDonald; of an overcoat valued at 18s, the property of John Alilson; and of an overcoat valued at £l, the property of R. D. Aliller. Senior-Sergeant Alclntyre stated that accused had taken the overcoats from hotels, had sold one to a secondhand dealer for ss, loft two in a fish shop, and was wearing one when arrested, while he had possession of the other. Accused had advanced the explanation that he had been on a drinking bout and had only a hazy recollection of what had happened. He had a number of previous convictions, including two on recent charges of theft.

Observing that .accused was sufficiently sober to know how to sell one of the overcoats, the Alagistrate sentenced him to one month’s imprisonment on each of the five charges, the terms to be cumulative. He added that accused would learn to leave other people’s-property alone. An order was made for the return to their owners of the overcoats which had been recovered.