CASE FOR DOCTOR?

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 201, 25 August 1937, Page 22

CASE FOR DOCTOR?

MAN WITH BAD RECORD. SUGGESTION BY COUNSEL. (By Telegraph.—Press Association.) WELLINGTON, Tuesday. Stated by the magistrate to have been convicted 34 times, mostly for theft, Thomas John Henry Foote, aged 29, a single man, was sentenced to one year's reformative detention on one of six charges, heard to-day. Counsel for Foote, Mr. Tarrant, said that the accused left gaol on June 1 and obtained employment, but as soon as his prison record became known he was discharged. He subsequently fell to drinking. "He is one of the type which, when it takes to drink, takes also to petty offences in order to get more drink. It is a case for a doctor rather than a Court of law." Mr. E. D. Mosley, S.M.: What could a doctor do? Mr. Tarrant: I don't know, sir, but I do think that the public has not gone far enough in investigating methods to deal with cases of this type. Mr. Motley: This man lias been convicted .'54 times, mostly for theft. He has had probation extended to him, he has been convicted and ordered to come up for sentence if called upon and he has been imprisoned. Society must protect itself from depredations of this kind, whether the offender is weak or not. A better way might be to have him placed under supervision for a number of years, but, unfortunately, we cannot do that. The only course we can take in the interests of society is to put him away for a time."