PUNISHING TWICE

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIV, Issue 12, 15 January 1943, Page 2

PUNISHING TWICE

SEVERE SENTENCES RULING BY CHIEF JUSTICE LONDON. A ruling by the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Caldecote, has thrown doubts on the advisability of the British Court system of detailing previous convictions before determining the sentence of an offender. Reviewing a three-year sentence passed on a young soldier for a small theft, he declared that for a judge to add up previous convictions and then to increase the severity of a sentence was "dangerously like punishing a man twice." The case, which came before Lord Caldecote in the Appeal Court, concerned Reginald John Betteridge, a 21-year-old soldier, who had been sentenced at Gloucester to three years' penal servitude. Betteridge. it was stated, had pleaded guilty to stealing a small sum of money from a house. In earlier years he had committed offences of a similar character and the Recorder calculated that he had committed 19 different offences since January 1, 1941. Lord Caldecote said: "If a man shows himself unresponsive to leniency it is a- reason for giving him the proper sentence he deserves m that particular case. "The Proper Sentence" . "The Court thinks this sentence is wrong and that. a shorter term should be given. "Bearing in mind that Betteridge had disregarded warnings and was not entitled to any particular leniency, the proper sentence was one of 20 months' imprisonment." Betteridge's appeal against sentence was allowed accordingly A legal expert told a Daily Mail reporter later: "It has always been recognised that the mere fact that a man has previous convictions is not of itself sufficient grounds for imposing a heavy "sentence for later crimes. "To Reform Him" "The man's previous character is only one of the factors that are borne mind when sentence is passed. "If a man's record shows that he commits crimes as soon as he gets out of prison, he may be given a stiff sentence to reform him. "Lord Caldecote's statement emphasises the point that a stiff sentence should not be imposed on a man just because he has had such punishment before."