SHOPLIFTING TOUR

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 851, 20 December 1929, Page 11

SHOPLIFTING TOUR

WOMAN OPERATING IN FIVE STORES FINE OF £2O IMPOSED After visiting four shops in what Chief-Detective Hammond described at the Police Court this morning as “a Christmas shoplifting tour,” Anna Alexander Mills was caught by a watchful assistant as she was helping herself in a fifth store. When arrested, she was found to have a large assortment of goods and paper and string with which to tie them up. Mr. F. K. Hunt, S.M., lined her £2O. Mills, a married woman, aged 43. of Onehunga, pleaded guilty to stealing a dressing gown valued at £1 5s from a city store yesterday. She was arrested by Acting-Detective Kemp.

The chief-detective said the woman had been equipped with paper and string with which to make parcels of heir booty. She was a woman with a good home and had £lO in her own name in the bank. Major Gordon, probation officer, mentioned that accused was under a doctor’s care. She was in a terrible state over the affair. “Yes,” assented Mills, “when I break down, I get sort of silly and don’t know what I am doing.” The Magistrate: Next time you don’t feel well you had better stay at home. The chief-detective added that accused had been lined £2O two years ago for a similar offence. He produced the stolen goods, which included socks, a silk scarf, a bag of tennis balls and a mouth-organ. “Good Christmas presents,” com men ted the magistrate. “If it were not for her health I would send the woman to gaol for a month. I am told that she had an excellent home and all that a woman could wish for.” Default of the line was fixed at a month’s imprisonment. Accused was ordered to pay half the fine immediately out of her bank account, and was given a month in which to find the other £lO.