DARING BURGLARIES

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 827, 22 November 1929, Page 16

DARING BURGLARIES

GIRL SAID TO HAVE JOINED YOUNG THIEVES “BOLD AND RECKLESS” From. Our Own Correspondent NEW PLYMOUTH, Today. Extraordinary circumstances were narrated in the New Plymouth Supreme Court yesterday, before Mr. Justice MacGregor, T>y the Crown Prosecutor, Mr. C. IT. Weston, when conducting the case against a young rnan, Leonard Edward Smith, who pleaded not guilty to 25 charges arising out of 14 burglaries in New Plymouth and Inglewood between July 13 and August 18. Among the exhibits in court was a safe with the bottom broken out, a crowbar, a tyre-lever, a pair of boltcutter©, an electric torch, a tyre pressure gauge, a cashbox, and a woollen glove. The Crown Prosecutor said that accused and a young man named Elliott, who had confessed that he had been an accomplice in th© crimes, were accompanied by a young girl, who had since been married to Elliott. All the burglaries had been bold and reckless operations, without any attempt at concealment. Usually the breaking and entering had been done by means of a crowbar or tyre lever, and sometimes the bolt-cutter© were used to cut padlocks off doors. Counsel told the judge that the offences had been committed at night. The cash proceeds had been small, only amounting to £l7 Is Bd, but the victims’ losses had been greater because of the damage to their premises and to safes and valuable papers. The evidence for the prosecution had not been c< .npleted when the court adjourned for the day.