YOUTHFUL DELINQUENT

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23916, 18 September 1939, Page 11

YOUTHFUL DELINQUENT

THEFTS BY MESSAGE BOY POSTMAN'S BAG RIFLED (Per United Press Association) CHRISTCHURCH. Sept. 16. While delivering parcels around a suburb a 14-year-old message boy removed 71 postal packages from a bag on a postman’s cycle outside a shop and, taking them home, opened them in his bedroom and removed cheques postal notes, money orders, and stamps of a total value of £26 12s 4d, later using some of the money orders. The day before he stole four books of art union tickets from a shop counter and, after selling some of the tickets at 2s 6d each, destroyed the others. This morning he pleaded guilty in the Children’s Court to the thefts. “It is obvious you are a thief, and a consistent thief, and we would be failing in our duty to the community if we did not place some restraint on you,’’ said the magistrate, Mr F. F. Reid, in committing the boy to the care of the State. Detective Sergeant Hakrow said the youth had been employed as a message boy, and while on his round had removed the packages from the postman’s bag. He opened the letters in his bedroom and removed all the cheques, postal notes, money orders, and stamps, cashing some of the money orders. Of this money he had spent 13s 7d. He had destroyed three cheques, and all the letters and other notes had been hidden in a wood shed He had been before the court in 1936.