SENTENCE NOT YET CARRIED OUT

Press, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23352, 11 June 1941, Page 8

SENTENCE NOT YET CARRIED OUT

PRISONERS ORDERED TO BE FLOGGED (F.0.P.R.) WELLINGTON, June 10. ' “I will have to look into that matter,” said the Attorney-General (the Hon. H. G. R. Mason), when asked today if the sentence of flogging, imposed by Mr Justice Blair in the Supreme Cqurt at Auckland on four prisoners after assaults on warders, had been carried out. A subsequent judgment of the Court of Appeal stated that the sentence of 12 years’ imprisonment artd 20 strokes imposed on them was not excessive in view of the gravity of the offences.

In reply to a further question, Mr Mason said to-day that the sentence of flogging had not yet been carried out, and he agreed that the law required It to be done within six months of sentence being passed. The men were sentenced at Auckland last February. Later, in the House of Representatives, Mr W. P. ’Endean (Opposition, Remuera) asked the Minister whether the sentence of flogging on certain prisoners for dangerous and vicious asr saults on warders had been carried out. He recalled thpt the sentence had been confirmed by the Court of Appeal, and asked whether it was the intention of the Government to have it carried out. "Any failure to carry out the sentence will mean the removal of -a deterrent for others to commit a similar crime, and may affect discipline in the gaols of the Dominion,” Mr Endean said. “Has the Government made any decision on the question of capital puninshment?" Mr Mason was also asked. The suggestion was made to him that Lord Galway, at one of his final meetings of the Executive Council, had suggested that the Government should either carry out the law or revoke the law regarding capital punishment. Mr Mason’s reply was that too many, other important subjects had had to be dealt with by the Government in recent months.