BROKEN PROBATION.

Auckland Star, Volume LVIII, Issue 167, 18 July 1927, Page 10

BROKEN PROBATION.

INTERESTING LEGAL POINT.

FIRST OFFENCE RECALLED,

\t'( KLAN'T) I'RISOXKI; S lU,-HEALTH. An interesting point under the Tro!>atii>n Acts occupied Judge Herdman in t lie Supreme C ourt to-day, when a youth named Frank T.ockhart Crawford rami' no tor sentence. Having broken the terms of his probation, he was liable to lie dealt with for liis first ofTence. Mr. Dick-on. for pri-oner, said the tail-, were not denied. Crawford originally came before tlie Court on a charge ot stealing money belonging to the (io\ernrnent. at, Uototua, r-.d was planed on probation. Some time later. In- got di i; nk. and was brought before I lie Aiieklam - Magistrate's Court, where the maximum penalty, namely three months' imprisonment, was imposed. Mr. Dickson said it could scarcely have been the intention of the authorities who drew up the Act that a man who had been sentenced to the maximum penalty for a breach of probation should lie punished further by a sentence for hid original offence. Prisoner was delicate, suffering from tuberculosis, and he had .spent a month in the prison hospital. Counsel submitted that there would be no hope of him recovering if a further term of imprisonment win imposed. Mr. Dickson suggested that the ease would be met by accused being bound over to come up for sentence if culled upon. This would enable him to be sent to a hospital or sanatorium.

Counsel also requested that leniency should be allowed in regard to the order for restitution of the money originally stolen (over £02). Accused, he said, was not, in a position to earn enough to pay the money back.

Ilia Honor: I don't regaul that with any particular degree of seriousness, but T observe there was an olTence against a woman.

Mr. Campbell, probation officer, said this occurred at tin? time when accused whs drunk. Apparently he chased a woman along the street and got hold of her. The lady, however, was reluctant to eonie forward to give evidence and the charge could not l>e proceeded with.

II is Honor intimated that lie ■would deal with accused to-morrow, after he had gone further into the case.