There was too much sympathy with criminals these days, declared Mr. Jutice [sic] Wells in sentencing Donald Speed, managing director of Autoterms Ltd., Melbourne, to 12 months' hard labour.
On June 18, 1948, at Darwin, Speed had been found guilty of having, on October 17, 1947, stolen a quantity of valves, the property of the Commonwealth, valued at £4,295.
Accused had been remanded for sentence to the Supreme Court sitting on Monday.
A subsequent appeal against the jurisdiction of the Court had been dismissed.
Mr. Dimelow, for Speed, in his address to the Judge made a strong appeal for leniency, basing his plea on the grounds that Speed had already suffered severe punishment in the form of mental anguish and humiliation, in addition to the heavy cost of his defence.
He stressed the fact that there was no previous mark against Speed's record, that he had never had any trouble whatever with the Police, and that in this case there was no evidence to show any plotting and planning on his part in the matter of the valves theft.
"He was lawfully in the shed," Mr. Demilow said, "and yielded to the irresistible urge to do what he should not have done."
He said that his client had been "arrested under the most humiliating circumstances in which a man could be arrested - taken in his own home amongst his own friends at dinner" and that since then he had "stood upon the pillory of public odium."
Mr. Dimelow went on to say that the passing of a severe sentence on one convicted man had proved to be no deterrent to other lawbreakers.
His Honor: "I don't agree with you there. There is too much symapthy[sic] with criminals these days."
Speed was then sentenced to hard labour for 12 months.
Source: Trove Northern Standard (Darwin, NT : 1921 - 1955) Friday 30 July 1948 Page 5