WOMAN FORBIDDEN TO RETURN PARCEL

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 364, 26 May 1928, Page 1

WOMAN FORBIDDEN TO RETURN PARCEL

TOOK IT BY MISTAKE CHARGED WITH THEFT (Special to THE SUN) WELLINGTON, Friday. “By mistake she took a parcel containing two woman’s jumpers from the counter of a jeweller’s shop, but she submits that, as her husband forbade her to return them, she cannot be convicted of theft.” This was the defence raised by Mr. Jackson, in the Magistrate’s Court today, on behalf of Sylvia Shaw, who was charged with stealing a parcel containing two woman’s jumpers valued at £4. “Do you say that in law that excuses you on a charge of theft?” asked Mr. E. Page, S.M. “She took no steps whatever to advise the person to whom the jumpers belonged that she had taken them.” Counsel said accused’s husband had refused to allow her to go back to the shop, and, as she was more or less under his domination she could not do anything else but obey him. “If she had gone back and said she had taken the goods by mistake, and that her husband would not let her return them,” said the magistrate, “there would have been an end to the charge against her.” Mr. Jackson pointed out that accused had made no use whatever of tlie jumpers. Her husband had left her about a week after the incident, and she had not seen the jumpers since his departure. The magistrate said that a conviction would have to be entered. Accused would be ordered to come up for sentence if called upon within 12 months.