MARATHON OFFENDER

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 452, 6 September 1928, Page 1

MARATHON OFFENDER

PRISONER TO BE TRIED FOR THEFT

GAOLED FOR ASSAULT

Pleading not guilty at the Police Court this morning to breaking and entering the premises of fhe Twigg Engineering Company and stealing brassware, Ernest Edward Cox, a labourer, aged 45, was committed to the Supreme Court for trial. On a further charge of assault, to which he also pleaded not guilty, accused was sentenced to one month's imprisonment.

Horace Atto Scott, manager of the company, identified the stolen property, assessing its value at £sl Is 9d. Mr. Scott said that on the morning of September 1, he went down to the warehouse in Daldy Street, Freeman’s Bay, where he found the window broken. The goods had evidently been taken from the window. Hearing a rattle of tins at one o'clock in the morning aroused the suspicions of Joseph Lee, a nightwatchman employed by the Shell Oil Company. “I saw a man at the window of the Twigg Engineering Company,” he told the court. “When I first went up to him he shammed drunk. A pane of glass had been broken and the man was lifting brassware from the window and dropping it in a benzine tin. He told me he was waiting l for a ‘sheila.’ ” Witness said that he took a cog from accuseds* hand and was then butted in the stomach and winded. “I went away to call the police,” continued Mr. Lee, “and when I returned the man was going round the corner with what loked like a kerosene tin on his shoulder. When Constable Yeoward came back with the man, who was arrested in Victoria Park, I identified him as the man here in the dock.” “What have you to say about the assault charge?” asked Mr. F. K. Hunt, S.M., of the prisoner. Cox: I want to be tried by a jury. The whole thing is one case. Magistrate: You can’t. What have you to say? Cox: I was no nearer Freeman’s Bay than the Victoria Park grandstand that night. Magistrate: What do you know of him, Mr. McCarthy? Sub-Inspector McCarthy: He has made his bow 87 times before the court, and is at present serving a sentence.