FOUR YEARS

Auckland Star, Volume LXXII, Issue 166, 16 July 1941, Page 11

FOUR YEARS

SOLDIER'S SENTENCE

PETITION FOR REVIEW

(By Telegraph.—Parliamentary Reporter.) | WELLINGTON, this day. A petition presented to the House of Representatives yesterday by the member for Napier, Mr. Barnard, on behalf of a constituent requests Parliament to consider the case of a young New Zealand soldier who is serving a sentence of four years' imprisonment in Suva gaol on a charge of violence while intoxicated. The prayer of the petition is that the accused be brought back to New Zealand and his sentence reviewed with the object of making a substantial reduction.

It is pointed out by the petitioner, the widowed mother of the soldier, that he was only 18 years of age when sentenced, and that he had given up a position in New Zealand to enlist in the forces, alleging that his age was 21. He was sent to Fiji, an entirely new and foreign experience for a lad who had spent a lifetime in country surroundings. It is suggested that the whole future of this young soldier is jeopardised by this sentence of the Civil Court of Fiji, and that in view of his youth and lack of experience of life it was unduly severe.