HOUSES BROKEN INTO

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVIII, Issue 48, 25 January 1938, Page 4

HOUSES BROKEN INTO

YOUTH SENTENCED. A sentence of three years’ Borstal detention was passed by Mr J. L. Stout, S.M., in the Magistrate’s Court at Palmerston North, yesterday afternoon, on Itonald Douglas Hodgetts, ' a farmhand, aged 19, of no fixed abode, who was stated to have been active in a number of housebreaking exploits in the Eketahuna and Pahiatua districts. Ten charges were preferred, all in respect ot thefts, and they involved the following: Thefts of various articles at Rongokokako, on January 16, of a total value of £ls 11s, the property of O. H. Nagel; the theft of a number ot articles on January 8 at Pahiatua, the property of W. D. C. Crewe, oi a total value of £3O Is; stealing a bicycle, valued at £7, on January 11, at Eketahuna, the property of C. Parsons; stealing various articles on January 13 at Eketahuna, the property of H. B. Angus, of a total value of £9 17s 6(1; stealing various articles at Kaiparoro on January 14, of a total value of 16s, the property of A. Faulkner; stealing SHs in money on January 14 at Eketahuna, tlie_ property of R. Watson; stealing a bicycle valued at £9, the property of J. 0. W. Anderson, at Eketahuna on January 15; stealing £1 in money, the property of D. Doney, at Eketahuna on January 15; stealing articles and money of a total value of 16s lOd, the property of M. Galvin, at Eketahuna on January 16, and stealing 7s 8d in money at Hamua, on January 16, the property of J. Wolland. Accused, who pleaded guilty to all the charges, was stated by Senior-Ser-geant Mclntyre to have been under the control of the Child Welfare Department since he was eight years of age, and to have spent a period at the Weraroa farm. He obtained employment at Eketahuna on January 10 and, when his employers went for a holiday, embaiked on a series of offences, breaking and entering, houses in that locality and in the Pahiatua district, until finally he was found concealed under a bed in a house at Hamua. Two cycles which lie had stolen had provided his means of transport. He had slept for two nights in an untenanted house, and made himself a meal in another which he entered. Finally he was disturbed in a house and hid under a bed awaiting a chance to escape, but was discovered by the owner’s dog, and detained until the police arrived. He was now entirely beyond the jurisdiction of the Child Welfare Department. and it seemed that there was no option but to send him to Borstal. The Magistrate convicted and discharged accused on the summary chnrges, but on the indictable charges ordered him to be detained in the Borstal institution for three years. He added that under the discipline there, accused would have a chance to learn to work, and might become a decent citizen.