THEFT OF BICYCLES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 14 January 1943, Page 2

THEFT OF BICYCLES

MAORI SENT TO BORSTAL INSTITUTION. OBSTRUCTION ALSOJPLACED ON RAILWAY LINE. A Maori, Joe Wilson Brown, of Kopuaranga, was committed to a Borstal institution for 18 months on charges relating to the theft of three bicycles, when he appeared on remand before Mr H. P. Lawry, S.M., in the Masterton Court this morning. On a charge of placing an obstruction on the railway line between Kopuaranga and Mauriceville, Brown was convicted and discharged. Senior Sergeant C. Murphy said that the theft of cycles was prevalent in Masterton at present. It was a mean and contemptible type of theft. On December 25 Mr N. Gilbert had left a cycle valued at £8 10s in Queen Street for two hours. Brown had stolen the cycle to ride home to Kopuaranga. The number on the cycle had been filed off and parts had been changed. Mr E. Tozer and Mr K. G. Pullen had had cycles valued at £3 and £lO respectively stolen. Mr Tozer’s cycle had been dismantled and the frame had been thrown in a river.

Senior Sergeant Murphy said that on November 18 a railcar travelling between Mauriceville and Kopuaranga at a speed of 50 miles an hour was-head-ing towards four totara rails nine feet;, long which had been laid across the line. The driver braked sharply, and the car struck the obstruction practically as the car stopped. Had he not braked in time the car would have been derailed. A boy who had assisted Brown had since been committed to a mental institution. Constable Nalder" had made enquiries which led to Brown’s arrest. Mr Lawry said that a term of Borstal treatment would meet the case.