AN EAST COAST RAID

Wairarapa Age, 12 February 1927, Page 5

AN EAST COAST RAID

BREWER AND PETERSEN BEFORE THE COURT. CAR CONVERSION AND VARIED THEFTS. fc BOTH MEN PLEAD GUILTY. Sensational events aL Castlepoint, Tinui, and other parts of the East Coast district were recalled in the Magistrate’s Court yesterday, when y George Huia Brewer and Edgar Arthur Peterson were charged with unlawfully converting to their own use a number of motor cars, and with the theft of a considerable amount of property. Both men are already awaiting sentence for breaking and entering at Te Kuiti. • The charges heard yesterday concerned the unlawful conversion of cars owned by Harold Scales, A. A*. Schofield, N. F. Foreman, S. Holdsworth, B. M. Harvey and M. Perston, and a motor-cycle owned by H. O’Connor. Brewer and Peterson were charged also with the theft of motor tools and supplies, blankets, a rug, clothes, bathing suits, provisions and various other articles, some of them owned by the persons already named and others by W. JL Horne. T. Gadsby, A. J. Knox and C 1 ’ Hawkins. Both men pleaded guilty to the various charges, and elected to be 4 dealt with by the Magistrate on the charge cf theft from Hawkins. Sergeant Dyer said both men had already been committed to the Supreme Court at Wellington for breaking and lentering at Te Kuiti. Brewer had also pleaded guilty to the theft of a motor car at Hamilton, and had been committed for sentence. Brewer had also been sentenced to three months’ hard labour at Hamilton for escaping from custody, and also to six months’ gaol and two years’ reformative for theft ac Auckland. Describing the events which created a stir on the East Coast on December 27 and 28, Sergeant Dyer said that after taking the cars, the men drove to Wellington in the Ajax car. arriving in that city about 11 a.m. They then letjz for Auckland, arriving there on December 29. They remained in Auckland for a couple of weeks, making two ©f "three trips to Hamilton. They then made a trip to Te Awamutu where they were arrested. The Ajax car had run about 3000 miles since it was taken from Mr. Perston’s garage. Maurice Perston, in evidence, said that when the car was returned it had been knocked about. There was a spring broken, vacuum tank cracked, curtains broken, and several other minpr things which had to be repaired. The repair work cost £ll. The car had travelled 2710 miles since being taken. Constable Wilson, of Tinui, said that when the loss of the cars was reported. a description of the two young men missing from the station at Castlepoint was circulated. One was a cowboy on the station and the other was supposed to be a medical student. The men had made statements on Thursday evening, detailing the whole of the incident with the motor cars. The statements showed that both young men were previously inmates of the Borstal Institute. Both men repeated their plea of guilty and were committed to the Supreme Court at Wellington for sentence on the charge of taking Mt. Perston’s Ajax car. Mr. Mowlcm then dealt with the men upon the other charges to which "they had pleaded His Worship said that as the men were going to the Supreme Court upon other charges, he would leave it for the Supreme Court Judge to review the whole matter. He then sentenced the prisoners upon various charges. For taking Scales’s car the sentence upon both defendants was imprisonment for three months with hard labour; for stealing Scales’s ether property, six months ’ hard labour with an additional two years’ reformative treatment; for stealing W. D, Horde’s property, six months’ hard labour. with two years’ reformative treatment- for taking Schofield’s ear, Foreman’s car, Holdsworth’s car, Harvey’s car, and O’Connor’s motor-cycle, three months’ hard labour on each charge; for stealing Gadsby’s property, Knox’s property, and Hawkins’s property, six months’ hard labour on each charge, with an additional two years’ T< formative treatment.