Youthful Burglar Faces 15 Charges

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 609, 11 March 1929, Page 1

Youthful Burglar Faces 15 Charges

THEFTS TOTAL £2OO ESCAPE AND RECAPTURE “He is a recent importation and vve would be only too pleased to get him out of the country,” said Chief-Detective Hammond when a i youthful burglar stood in the Police Court dock this morning to answer 15 charges. | Between January 10 and February | 2S, John William Osborne, a pale youth just over 17 years of age, ransacked 13 houses in the south-eastern suburbs of Auckland. Ha stole goods and money of a total value of over £220, and his haul included clothing, jewellery, household goods, money and a bicycle. Osborne faced 12 charges of breaking and entering and theft, one of breaking and entering with intent to commit a crime, one of theft from a dwelling, and one of theft. The persons who suffered from his depredations were Robert Arthur Dowell, George Redman. Reginald Alfred Anderson, Lillian .May Merrideth, Emily Trotter; Lionel McGregor, • Sarita McLoughlin, George Bloomfield, William Simonsj Jane Oran. Eileen Pascoe, William. . Sinclair, Lillian Halloway, Florence McFarlane and Robert Percy Leonard.

Detective Hunt said that he arrested Osborne on February 13. He had escaped from the cells at the Police Station that night and was recaptured on February 28. The detective produced statements, made by accused in which he admitted all the offences and detailed the circumstances of each exploit. Fear of detection liad prevented the youth from trying to sell the jewellery he had stolen, and he was able to lead witness to where it had been planted. Stolen property was identified, and other additional evidence given by the occupiers of the homes Osborne had visited.

After pleading guilty, Osborne asked whether he could not be sent back to England. Mr. Hammond mentioned that the boy had been in the Dominion only about 18 months and had been brought out by some organisation. He was never likely to do any good in New Zealand, and the police would be only too pleased to have him return whence he had come. “A couple of years in the Borstal would do him no harm before he goes,” concluded the chief detective. Osborne was committed to the Supreme Court for sentence. ESCAPE FROM CELL

When Osborne was arrested his youth prompted the police to be more thau usually lenient with him, and he was put in one of the upper cells at the Police Station.

At one o’clock in the morning a sergeant and a constable made one of their periodical visits to the youth’s cell, which he shared with another young man who had been arrested. They went in. in the dark, expecting the inmates to be asleep at that hour of the morning. Osborne must have been waiting his chance, and in the darkness slipped out quietly behind them.

Osborne was recaptured at two o’clock on the morning of March 1, when he was found camping in an empty house in Mountain Road. Five detectives surrounded the house and Osborne was found fully dressed standing up in a cupboard. He offered no resistance when arrested.