Month’s Gaol for Shoplifter—- Woman Faints After Sentence

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 42, 12 May 1927, Page 1

Month’s Gaol for Shoplifter—Woman Faints After Sentence

SECOND ACCUSED FINED £2O

SENTENCED to a month’s imprisonment for shop-lifting, in the Police Court this morning, Lottie Taylor, a welldressed married woman of 35, fainted and had to be carried from the court.

The charges of shoplifting from two separate city emporiums brought against Mrs. Taylor and Mrs. Agnes Fanny Carter, ten shears her senior, last week had a dramatic climax today when Mr. P. K. Hunt, S.M., convicted both women.

Chief-Detective Cummings told the court that both were widows, and both in fair financial circumstances. Mrs. Taylor had been convicted in 1924 on two similar charges and placed on probation for a year. • The other woman, who Mr. Cummings had reason to believe had been influenced by Mrs. Taylor, had never been before the court before. “Mrs. Taylor had far too expensive a wardrobe for a woman of her position,” said the Chief Detective. Mr. J. J. Sullivan, who appeared for both the accused women, said that there was one redeeming feature of the case. They had not actually taken the stolen articles from the second shop. They had taken some tooth-brushes and a woollen jumper from one department he said, but later, before they left they repented, and threw the articles behind a mirror in another department. Referring to the older woman, counsel said that hers was a pitiful story.

She was the mother of three children. Her husband was dead, her son died about six months ago, and her daughter, a‘ girl of 20, was at present in a T.B. shelter. She was prostrate with grief, he said, and asked for leniency. A fine and a stringent term of probation he suggested would meet the case. “As far as Mrs. Carter is concerned,” said the magistrate, it is her first time before the court, and her case may be considered due to the evil example of Mrs. Taylor. She will be fined £2O and placed on probation for twelve) months. If she comes up again she will go to gaol.” Mrs. Carter then stepped down. “Mrs. Taylor has been convicted before. She has lost her chance. Sentenced to a month’s imprisonment and placed on probation for twelve months.”

Alone in the dock, Mrs. Taylor looked calmly at the Bench as the sentence was pronounced, turned when the Magistrate had finished speaking, and stepped out of the dock still as though nothing untoward had happened. At the foot of the dock steps, however, she crumpled suddenly in a faint and had to be car ried out of the court to the prisoners' room.