SENTENCE DAY.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 178, 29 July 1940, Page 3

SENTENCE DAY.

IN SUPREME COURT.

GAOL TERMS IMPOSED. WITNESSES COMMENDED. GIRL SLEEPING NEAR WINDOW 'Sen prisoners who had been found guilty of, or had pleaded guilty to, offences during the current Supreme Court session came before Mr. Justice Callan to-day for sentence. "This form of sexual aberration is new to me and very dreadful," said his Honor of the form of indecent assault of which Norman Clifford McGill, aged 29 years, had been found guilty. A young woman was asleep in a bed near an open window, his Honor added, and the accused had been convicted of reaching through the window and placing his hand under the bedclothes and on the •woman's body. This was a crowded city, which became very hot in the summer months. Many modest young women had to sleep in rooms which were not upstairs and isolated, and with open windows. They had to be protected from such a man as this, who seemed to have some unusual and highly dangerous kink. He would throw on the Prisons Board the responsibility as * when it would be safe to allow the prisoner to be at large, by sentencing him to a term of three years' reformative detention.

His Honor added that the young woman who had give.n evidence in the ease had done a very great public service, by reporting the circumstances and giving evidence. Fur'".er, the nursing sister, in respect to whose complaint the accused had been found guilty, had given clear and satisfactory evidence, and her identification of accused had satisfied his mind. "BRAINS OF A SORT.* "This young man has brains of a sort, which he persistently mis-uses," remarked his Honor of Hohepa Taniihana Hope, a married man, aged 30 years, who was described by his counsel, Mr. W. W. King, as a man who had had a University education and had some experience singing over the air. He had admitted the theft of jewellery from a jeweller's shop, and his counsel said he thought love of ostentation was at the root of the trouble. His Honor said that when first eeen by the police the prisoner wiote an explanation which was quite a clever romance, containing not a word of truth. He had twice before been convicted of theft, and he would be sentenced to two years' imprisonment with hard labour. TAXI DRIVER COMMENDED. "These voting men are Australian* who have been not long in New Zealand, and have each secondary education, and yet each has already been convicted of theft since coming to Xew Zealand," I said hi* Honor when John Terrence Green {23), and Charles McKenzie Rnes (24), came up for sentence on a charge of robbery with violence. The men, added his Honor, had in his opinion been rightly and properly convicted of a serious crime. They would be sentenced to imprisonment for 30 months with hard labour. Later his Honor commended the action of a taxi-driver in the case who gave information to the police of a suspicious circumstance that led to the prosecution, of the men. The young man had shown highly creditable initiative, courage and decision by his behaviour. MERCY SHOWN. Allan Howard York (31) and Oerak Klston Lewie (2'J), as young married men, had pleas for mercy made by Mr. Terry and Mr. Dickeon respectively on their behalf for their crime of breaking and entering with intent to commit a crime. Mr. Dickson further reminded the Court that the jury had made a recommendation of mercy in re-spect to Lewis. Hie Honor said that, despite the fact that these were liret offenders, and young married men with young families, probation could not be granted. He had fixed twelve months' imprisonment as a proper penalty, but felt the Court should always give effect to a jury's recommendation to mercy, and so he fixed the ■sentence for both accused at eight months' imprisonment with hard labour. ADMITTED TO PROBATION. Stating that the degree of indecency of which Walter Joseph Brophy, a poultry farmer, aged 46 years, had been found guilty wae really trifling, his Honor admitted the man to probation for four years, with conditions requiring him to abstain from liquor and from visits to the city, and also to pay £20 expenses.