THREE YEARS' HARD

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 116, 19 May 1939, Page 9

THREE YEARS' HARD

MAXIMUM PENALTY.

HIT OLD MAN OVER HEAD. FLEA BT ACCUSED'S COUNSEL. (By Telegraph.—Press Association.) CHRISTCHUKCH. this day. The maximum penalty of three years' imprisonment with hard labour was imposed by Mr. Justice Northcroft in the .Supreme Court to-day on Walter Sydney Newell for assault with intent to rob. Newell had admitted hitting an old man over tile bead in the public gardens. On Xewell's behalf. Mr. Twyneham said that Newell was a single man. aged 33, and liad come to Cbristckurch from Hamilton only about a month before he committed the present offence. He was without money and staving with friends. He was unable to explain why he committed the offence as he had never before used \iolence. He was on probation for the theft of a bicycle at the time. Mental observation showed Newell was free from any abnormality, said the judge. It might have been open to the police to charge him under a different section of the Act, under which he could have been sent to prison for life. By the section under which Newell had been charged, the maximum penalty was three years' imprisonment with hard labour, and this was the senteuce that would be imposed.