Three months’ for stealing [court report, 3 September 1940]

[Editor: This article, regarding the trial of a man arrested for stealing, was published in the Goulburn Evening Post (Goulburn, NSW), 3 September 1940.]

Urged soldiers to rescue him

Pleading guilty at the Goulburn Police Court yesterday to a charge of stealing hair-combs and other articles valued at 10/ from the Auburn Street premises of G. J. Coles and Company on Thursday last, Edward Windsor Rochs, 61, was sentenced to three months’ hard labour.

This sentence was imposed following the disclosure that Rochs was known to the police as a very old offender, he having 130 previous convictions, dating back to 1917. The police prosecutor, Sergeant Searson, told the court that the defendant’s list included 31 convictions for stealing, custody of stolen goods and attempts to steal. Sentences for stealing ranged from several terms of three months to, he thought, four of 12 months. He also had convictions for assaulting the police, impersonating the police, vagrancy, drunkenness, offensive behaviour, hawking without a license and suspected person counts.

Hawking laces

Sergeant Suitor said that about 3 p.m. on Thursday he saw the defendant, who was holding a cardboard box containing bootlaces. Defendant was talking to two men in Auburn Street. Rochs, who denied that there was anything in his pockets, was taken to the police station. En route, witness, in answer to a question, told the defendant he answered the description of a man who had taken some hair-combs from a counter at Coles and Co.’s shop. Rochs replied: Yes. I took them.

“At the police station I searched him and found the stolen articles in his possession. The combs were in his pockets and most of the other articles were in the cardboard box,” added Sergeant Suitor, who said that Rochs had purchased two combs and the bootlaces at the shop in question. Rochs had been drinking, but seemed quite sober.

Rochs was sentenced as stated.

Source:
Goulburn Evening Post (Goulburn, NSW), 3 September 1940, p. 1

Editor’s notes:
Co. = an abbreviation of “Company”

en route = (French) on the way