TWO "SHOPPERS”

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 648, 27 April 1929, Page 1

TWO "SHOPPERS”

LOOKED FOR BARGAINS, BUT FOUND GAOL BOOTS TAKEN FROM SHOPS Joseph Roy O’Shea and Thomas kenning Marchbank went shopping yesterday. They selected what they wanted from the goods displayed outside the shops, but omitted to inform the shopkeepers that they had bean favoured with their custom. This morning, at the Police Court, O’Shea, a clerk, aged 33, and Marchbank, a labourer, aged 39, were charged with stealing a pair of boots valued at 25s from a Newmarket shoe store and a pair of boots, valued at 18s 6d, from a second shoe store in Parnell Road. Marchbank was also charged with resisting the police. Both Ken pleaded not guilty to all charges, except the theft from outside the Newmarket shop, which was admitted by Marchbank, as the boots had dropped from underneath his coat yheu he was accosted by a police sergeant in Broadway. Amelia Monks, proprietress of the ehop in Parnell Road, said that she had noticed the two men hanging about her shops for some time before the boots were missing. O'Shea was carrying a sugar-bag. Sergeant Browne, who followed the men into Newmarket by tram, was of the opinion that they were working together. Whatever mischief one was up to, the other was implicated. They ■aere both under the influence of liquor, and Marchbank had resisted Brrest violently until it became necessary to handcuff him. Asked if they had anything to say, both men asserted that they knew nothing of the theft from the Parnell Road shop. Marchbank said he was sorry for what he had done in Newmarket, but O’Shea feigned ignorance of that offence as well.

Mr. F. K. Hunt, S.M., convicted both men and Sub-Inspector McCarthy mentioned that they had long lists. One had 19 previous convictions and the other 23.

O'Shea: I have been in no trouble for a long time. Mr. Hunt: Well, you are in trouble how. Six months each.