CARGO PILLAGING

Wairarapa Times-Age, 11 February 1943, Page 4

CARGO PILLAGING

OFFENDERS SENTENCED IN WELLINGTON

ON CHARGES OF RECEIVING & THEFT. PLEA FOR PROBATION FAILS. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) WELLINGTON, Ths Day. “Probation cannot be granted in this ■class of cases,” said the Chief Justice (Sir Michael Myers) in the Supreme Court, Wellington, yesterday when sentencing Dennison Boyce Daniel, harbour board electric crane driver, aged 26, to 12 months’ hard labour for receiving some suiting knowing it to have been dishonestly obtained. Daniel had been found guilty by a jury. It was alleged that the suiting had been pillaged from cargo. “I am not laying down for myself a rigid rule that in no case of theft from a wharf can probation be granted, but circumstances must be very exceptional before probation can be granted, “the Chief Justice stated. “The punishment is necessary for showing persons inclined to do what you have done that it cannot be allowed, and that honesty is expected of men dealing with other people’s goods. If probation ' were granted in cases of this sort it would encourage people working on ships and wharves to believe that they can commit a first offence of this sort with impunity—and they cannot. The Court would not be doing its duty to the public in granting probation.” LOSSES AND CLAIMS. When prisoner was remanded for sentence his Honour had asked the Crown Prosecutor, Mr W. H. Cunningham, to supply him with information as to the seriousness of thefts on the waterfront, and yesterday Mr Cunningham said it was difficult to get any comprehensive figures. The Wellington Harbour Board was in a somewhat privileged position in meeting claims, and claims actually met in recent years were not very great. The amount involved against the harbour board in the cases tried, this session was the biggest for 10 years. The only shipping company involved in the cases handled .53,000 tons in 1940, .62,000 tons in 1941 and 34,692 tons in 1942 up to July, when the figures were made up. The total paid out in claims in that period was £l5OO, not including the present cases. That company handled at least half the overseas cargo. His Honour pointed out that the amount involved in the recent cases would bring the sum to over £2OOO, and the figures did not include coastal cargo.

Mr Cunningham said the opinion of overseas shipowners was that pillaging was increasing, and he believed it was the same with coastwise shipping. Mr G. Joseph, who appeared for prisoner, pointed out that the £l5OO would include cargo pillaged at its export ports, at various ports in New Zealand at which ships coming to Wellington called and in the ships themselves. It would be quite impossible to place great reliance on such figures in gauging pillaging in Wellington. His Honour said an analysis might show the figure to be a great deal more because claims were not always made for pillaged .cargo. • v Making a plea for probation, Joseph said that prisoner was guilty only .of receiving £lO worth of goods and that he had led a blameless- life previously. “The goods have been recovered and the only damage is to himself,” he said. His Honour: “There is damage to the reputation of all men who work on the wharves,” Mr Joseph. “It is committing an offence which is rampant, obviously, and must be stopped.” Mr Joseph said that prisoner would not be allowed to work on the wharves again. He was informed that the union did not allow any man convicted of dishonesty on the wharves to work on the wharves.

.Refusing to grant probation, -his Honour then passed sentence. Two years’ hard labour was the sentence passed on John Bourne Baylis, motor-driver, aged 36, found guilty of stealing from the harbour board one case of worsted suiting and one case of rayon crepe cloth, of a total value of £467 6s. His Honour said a theft such as Baylis had committed was, if anything, more serious in a time of stress like the than in other times. Baylis had previous convictions against his name.