YOUTH'S CRIME

Auckland Star, Volume LXXV, Issue 58, 9 March 1944, Page 6

YOUTH'S CRIME

ATTEMPTED MURDER FIVE YEARS' DETENTION (P.A.) BLENHEIM; this day. "You have done a terrible thing, but what you did was along the lines of what you have been doing for a long time," said Mr. Justice Finlay, in the Supreme Court to-day, when sentencing Allan Joseph Pope, aged 15, to detention in a Borstal institute for a period of five years.

His Honor pointed out that Pope, who had been found guilty on a charge of attempted murder, had commenced a criminal history which could only be characterised as appalling, when, at Wellington, he had burned a haystack in retaliation for not being allowed to collect insects on the property. The prisoner had been following a course oi conduct indicative of ruthless determination to do what he wanted, despite the rights of others. His Honor said he would take steps to prevent the prisoner's association at the Borstal with his companion in crime, who was already detained there.

On October 4 last Pope attacked with a heavy plough spanner Mrs. Muriel Mar-, guerita Robertson, mother-in-law of his employer, Arthur Gordon Roberts, on whose property at Kaka Ridge he was engaged as a State ward. The boy ana Mrs Robertson, an elderly woman, were alone on the farm at the time, and tne first intimation of what had occurred was Pope's appearance at the Ward 1 ost Office, where he asked the postmistress to send for a police van as he had murdered Airs. Robertson. A police party found the woman lying on the floor of the ki.chen with grave head injuries.