CAMP THEFTS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 15 July 1940, Page 6

CAMP THEFTS

EIGHT SOLDIERS & CIVILIAN CONVICTED ALL BUT ONE SENT TO GAOL. OFFENCES AT BURNHAM. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) CHRISTCHURCH, This Day. A series of thefts at Burnham Military Camp was described in Court this morning, when eight cooks, including a. sergeant in charge and one civilian, were charged. Seven of the soldiers were given a week’s hard labour and one was ordered to come up for sentence if called on, and the civilian, who was charged with receiving, was given six weeks in gaol. The soldiers charged were Robert Roland William Smith, 28; William Ernest Newfield, aged 41; Harry Graham Mantel, aged 27; Leo Webster Turvey, aged 32; Lindsay Miller, aged 24; Angus William Francis McLeod and Cecil Johnston, aged 37; and Rewi Harrison, aged 32. All but Harrison were sentenced to a week’s gaol, Harrison being convicted and ordered to come up for sentence if called on within six months. The civilian, Ernest Albert McGeorge, motor-driver, aged 30, was sentenced to six weeks imprisonment for receiving. The prosecution said McGeorge was making over £l,OOO a year as a nightsoil contractor at the camp. The contract was now being cancelled. Newfield was sergeant in charge of the cookhouse. Harrison was unfortunate in that he committed a theft in April, shortly after which a warning was issued and he had not stolen again. The others had ignored the warning.