MENACE TO WOMEN.

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 33, 8 February 1930, Page 3 (Supplement)

MENACE TO WOMEN.

FIVE YEARS FOR BRUTE,

HIS " CAVE-MAN" BOAST.

When at Leeds Assizes, Heny Exley. a 24-years-old engineer, or -Bradford, stepped smilingly, from the dock to begin concurrent sentences ot five years and three years' penal servitude tor offences against two women, a menace to society waa removed. ■■ Nearly a fortnight before Exley, who is a tall, dark, athletically built, well groomed man, was found guilty at the Leeds Assizes of offences committed against Misa Edith Evelyn Roberts, a 21-years-old Bradford mill girl, when he was taking her homa in a taxi cab to Cutler Heights Lane. On this occasion he had impudently forced his company on the girl when she was with two women friends in a resectable Bradford hotel. He persuaded Vrisfl Roberta to meet him the next mgnt, and after givinrr her dinner in a restaurant he suggested he should take hex home in a taxi cab, although Miss Roberts said she preferred to go home alone m a! bus.

No sooner had they got in the cab than Exley commenced objectionable conduct, and when she resisted hi 3 advances he attacked her rrenziedly and ferociously, forcing her back on to tne seat, beating her face and gripping her throat. Miss Roberts screamed, and, in spite of tne man's efforts to quieten her, the taxi cab driver heard her screams and pulled up near a policeman.

Mr. Justice Hawks deferred sentence on Exley, who was found guilty on three counts, relating to Miss Roberts. Later Exley went into the dock to be tried on more serious charges relating to Miss Edith Bradford, a fragile 23-years-old typist, of Shipley. ■yfiqa Bradford, who is the daughter of a Shipley accountant and _bear 3 an unblemished character, was, it was stated, returning to her home when Exley met her in a dark lane and dragged her many yards into a dark entry. There, despite her screams and struggles, he assaulted her. He released her only when he heard someone passing the top of the passage, wkereupon the girl ran home. _ Sne was ill in ,bed for nearly a fortnight after her terrible experience.

When Exley was tried at the Leeds summer assizes on the charges relating to Miss Bradford, the jury disagreed and ha waa released on bail. It was while he was awaiting retrial that he met Mi3s Roberts.

' When after half an hour's retirement the jury returned a verdict of guilty on both charges relating to Misa Bradford, the judge passed sentence of five 7fars' penal servitude on these charges, and three years' penal servitude for the offences aarainst Miss Roberts.

Passing sentence, the judge remarked: '"Your moral code is evidently of the lowest order. People given to analysing criminal feelings and motives may possibly have a name for the standard that guides vou. It is quite obvious that this sort of "thing must be dealt with severely and we cannot respectable young women being treated in this way.

Exley whose father is deai, and who for the past two and a half years has lived with his sister at Bradford, was stated to be a very- clever engineer and a good worker but for the past two years he had been drinking heavily. He was fond of boasting of his "cave-man" tactics with women.