MEAN THEFT

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 1, Issue 125, 19 January 1932, Page 5

MEAN THEFT

(Press. Assn.—

young man imposes on farmers and robs employer TRAYELLED WITH WOMAN

-By Telegraph — Cop,yrlg)it).

HAMILTON, Monday. "This man is a fraud He has been going about the country with a womari _ getting charitable aid and posing as a married man after leaving his real wife and child destitute," said Mr. Wyvern Wilson, S.M., in the Hamilton - Magistrate's Court to-day, in sentencing'Leonard James Patrick Reidy, alias James Lane, aged 23 years, to three months' hard labour for the theft of £3 12s in money, the prop- ; erty of John Leslie Prussing, of Ro-' totuna. Accused pleaded guilty, The accused and a woman with, whom he had been, living obtained employment as a married couple on * the farm of John Leslie Prussing, at Rototuna, according to Senior-Ser-geant Sweeney, who outlined the f acts ; of the case. On January 9, while Mr Prussing was working in the rield, the couple cleared out' and left -for Rotorua;, Reidy taking the money > from clothing in the house. Mr. Prussing had given the pair work only because they appeared to be. suffering hardship. • Constable Callaghan stated that he arrested the accused in Hamilton ori. Saturday evening and obtained a statement in which Reidy admitted, the offence. ' * ' • * Senior-Sergeant 'Sweeney* said Reidy and the' woman had been tr^ve'lling under fictitious names' obtain-* ous f arms for . short periods. The accused had deserted his wife and child in Auckland, leaving them destitirte. He was at -present under probatio'n for theft last Jrily; r " ■- - The Magistrate refused to cdmply with the accused's request to exterid' his period of probation and said he( had repaid kindness by theft.