"SINS OF SOCIETY."

Auckland Star, Volume LVIII, Issue 185, 8 August 1927, Page 8

"SINS OF SOCIETY."

TREATMENT OF MENTAL DEGENERATES.

AUCKLAND BARRISTER'S CRITICISMS. U)N<;UKGATION, XU T M-XiHEGATIOX." ''The prisoner has certainly sinned against Bwirty, but if ever society has sinned azuinst a man, that man stands in the dock, now," said Mr. Julius Hogben in the Supreme Court to-day, when he appeared on behalf of Francis Allen C iiljurn (21), who came up before Mr. • I list ifc Ilcrdmaii for sentence on charges <>l" indecent assault and attempted serious ofTerwe.-t on bovs.

Counsel said the view taken by that eminent authority, Dr. Mercier, appeared t(» represent the general view, namely, th.it perverted sexual mania could be as well controlled ns any of man's passions, not by an attempt at direct suppression, nor by the application of physical pain, but by tho arousing of other interests which would predominate and prevail. Supervision there must be, but still more important was the need for constant occupation, preferably both physical aud mental.

From the age of 18 until 23 accused spent practically the whole of his time as an inmate of (Jovernment institutions — institutions intended to reform the delinquent or to repair the brokenmindrd, but where accused learnt only one thing, namely, perverted sexual impulses. When he was 10 he was sent to Rurnham for petty thieving, and whilst there he lost his arm. Then he went to Wereroa, an institution designed to reform the delinquent, but where the vicious, the sub-normal, and those who were merely wayward were not segregated, but were congregated in such a way that if it was not a school for crime, it was certainly not a reformatory. It was at Wereroa that accused learnt tbie sexual perversion. From Wereroa he whs sent to Porirua Mental Hospital, and nfter a few months, to Tokanui Mental Hospital fsinn near Kihikihi. He was there, for five or six years, and apparently the practices which he had learnt at. Wereroa were more or less common I here.

In a report to the Crown solicitor, the medical superintendent of the Mental Hospital at Kihikihi, where accused wae a patient from June, 1921, until November, 1020, when he was discharged as recovered, stated that Coburn did not at any time during this period show sign* of mental disorder in the ordinary acceptance of the words, but was a thorough moral degenerate. He proved himself to be Untruthful, dishonest, and a religious hypocrite with marked sexual perversions. His case was quite unsuitable for detention in a mental hospital. Could there, asked Mr. Hogben, be any more trenchant criticism of our mental institutions than this report? All this was said about accused, and yet he was discharged as "recovered."

His Honor said it was quite clear from the evidence that the offences of which Coburn had been found guilty were not isolated ones. Accused had evidently earned a reputation for this kind of thin?. "A great deal of what your counsel has said may be true," added thr iudsro, "but T am bound to consider the public nt large, and particularly the younger people of the community. ,.

Sentence of two yearn' imprisonment with himl labour wns passed, and Coburn was ordered to be detained subsequent!? for reformative treatment for a period not exceeding three years.