FED UP WITH PROBATION

NZ Truth, Issue 1237, 15 August 1929, Page 1

FED UP WITH PROBATION

Youth Declared He Preferred Borstal, So Earned It

SENT AWAY FOR THREE YEARS

(From "N.Z. Truth's" Special Dunedin Representative)

It seems an extraordinary thing that a man, enjoying the liberty allowed by probation, should hanker after a term of durance vile m a Borstal Institution because he was "fed up" with probation.

THAT was the reason given by James 1 Kent Cabrel when he was caught by a man after he had bolted from a private house where his actions had aroused suspicion. Cabrel, who is a slightly-built youth, appeared before Mr. H. W. Bundle, S.M., m the Dunedin Police Court, with his left eye showing many shades of the rainbow, evidently the result of his tussle with his captor the day before.. , He "admitted charges of the theft of a bicycle, an attache case, and an attempted theft, and what little could be said irr his favor was entrusted to Mr. C. J. B! White.. While working m Dunedin, Chiefdetective Cameron told the court, . Cabrel decided to go to the Taieri district, and to get there he borrowed a bicycle, which he kept.for five weeks on the farm where he worked. That bicycle had never been recovered, Cabrel telling the police he left it there. | A schoolboy, who visited his music I teacher, left his attache case m the hall of the house, and Cabrel walked m the front door and ■ helped himself to the case. \. He found later that it contained only books, so he threw the bag into a timber yard. Cabrel, not contented with his "loot," then visited another residence; and, as before, walked into the house, where, unfortunately foi'. him, the lady of the house accosted him.. .■.....'■:. With plenty of assurance, Cabrel in-

formed the lady that he had come to look at the gas, but the old trick has been playe,d before, and "the lady, got Cabrel into a room and then hurried to get the police. Cabrel bolted, however, before the police arrived; but' a neighbor who had been informed chased him. ' . It was a good chase, while it lasted, but the neighbor eventually caughtthe flying youth, and it was then that Cabrel said: . "I -am fed up with probation, I want to go to a Borstal." According to . the chief-detective, Cabrel had' given the court trouble on other occasions, and he was" admitted to probation on. condition that he went into the country. He had quite a list as it was. .'..,•■' The only thing Mr. White could say m favor of Cabrel was ' that while he was m the country there was nothing to complain of, but once Cabrel came to the. city he got into trouble. "He cannot expect leniency," said Mr. White, "ami although it is not a case for probation, I do not think he expressed the desire to go to a Borstal m any seriousness." Tlie probation officer reported that Cabrel had given him considerable trouble m making him attend to the terms of> his probation. The Magistrate was convinced that Cabrel would have to be placed under some form of restraint, and he committed him. to the . Borstal for three years on each charge, the sentences, to be concurrent.