THEFT FROM POST OFFICE

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2422, 10 February 1909, Page 5

THEFT FROM POST OFFICE

A FANTASTIC BURGLABY. (Press Association.) _ AUCKLAND, Feb. 9. At the criminal sitting of the Supremo Court yesterday a youth named Charles Stewart Leggio was brought up on two charges of theft from the Post. Office, Coromandel. Counsel for the accused (Mr. 'Earl) designated the affair as. being something like a burlesque of crime. Leggie, a youth of barely 19, employed in the post office, had through sheer mental incapacity got ibis money -accounts mixed, and bad conceived the idea of having a burglary to clear the situation. He had,, in fact, -talked about this impending burglary ill quite an open manner, and had discussed the probabilities of it to his chief. Then came the burglary itself, the loss of £39, and the subsequent admission of the prisoner, that he had put the money in a kerosene tin down the garden. The prisoner had at all times been dull witted. Taken as a letter carrier be had shortly been put in charge of a counter, and was' entrusted with the payments of old age pensions, amounting to £220 a month. He was nn; used to book-keeping, and was startled to find . himself several pounds out in his accounts. Mr. Earl said apparently the only way out of it was the fantastic one of bolding the burglary. His Honor considered the case before him was so clearly unusual and different from the average offence that he' did not intend to seiid the prisoner to gaoi. He would be convicted and ordered to appear for sentence when required, liesides being called upon to pay the costs of the prosecution, amounting to £2 14.