Be careful who you burgle

Pierre Desire. Photo from Public Record Office, Victoria. Central Register of Male Prisoners VPRS 515/ P1 item 54, P347

© Michael Shelford 2019

The French sailor, Pierre Desire, didn’t have a very good time of it in Melbourne. In 1902 he was released from Pentridge Prison, after serving a 12 month sentence for burglary, and decided that he’d best get his finances sorted by breaking into another place. In fact, he thought he may as well start in the suburb in which he’d just been released: Coburg.
He was rummaging through some drawers in the front bedroom of a house, when he was surprised by the occupant, who promptly smacked him over the head with a baton. The occupant was Desire’s former warder from Pentridge Prison. Of all the rotten luck. The judge must have thought that Desire missed his former overseer and sent him back to Pentridge for another 3 years.