CONVERSION OF CARS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 2 November 1943, Page 2

CONVERSION OF CARS

YOUTH SENT BACK TO BORSTAL.

(By Telegraph—Press Association.) AUCKLAND, November 1

A young motor driver, Paul Roger Devenish, aged 19, pleaded guilty in the Magistrate’s Court today to 20 charges of unlawfully converting to his own use between October 8 and 25, 20 motor-cars of a total value of £6530. An unusual feature of the case was that the youth on numerous occasions used converted cars to ply for business as a taxi driver. His escapades came to an end at 1.30 a.m. on October 26, when a constable arrested him in one of the converted cars in company with two service men.

Devenish, who was on licence from Borstal, was sent back to-that institution for the maximum period of three years.

Counsel said Devenish was abandoned by his parents in South Africa when only an infant and was brought to New Zealand by his nurse, who ever since has been a real mother to him. He was well educated, but 'had a definite mental kink in regard to motor-cars.

The magistrate, Mr Luxford, told Devenish he appeared to have set out on a rampage of taking motor-cars. He might have a kink for things mechanical, but had shown much cunning. In sending him to Borstal Mr Luxford said that when he made up his mind that, crime did not pay things might go well for him.