SUPREME COURT FOUR YEARS IN PRISON FOR ATTEMPTED RAPE

Press, Volume XCIV, Issue 28157, 21 December 1956, Page 10

SUPREME COURT FOUR YEARS IN PRISON FOR ATTEMPTED RAPE

Wally Warihi Gray, aged 28, a shearer, who had pleaded guilty in the Magistrate’s Court at Oamaru to a charge of assaulting a woman with intent to commit rape, was sentenced by Mr Justice Adams in the' Supreme Court yesterday to four years’ imprisonment. On a charge of unlawful conversion of a motor-car. Gray was sentenced to one month’s imprisonment to be served concurrently with the previous sentence.

Mr L. G. Holder, counsel for Gray, said that the prisoner had never been in trouble before 1949. He returned from service in Japan that year and had been in and out of trouble ever since. He had had a considerable amount of liquor on the day of the assault and was under the influence of liquor when the offence was committed. The Crown Prosecutor (Mr A. W. Brown) said that the story of the offence was told in Gray’s statement. “His statement is evidently the plain truth. It is as honest a statement as I have ever read.” said Mr Brown.

“Luckily for you Gray you did not succeed in committing the complete offence but that is attributable to the resistance of the woman and not to any virtue on your part,” said his

Honour. “Your case is not far different from a case of rape. I take into account the fact that you did not succeed in your attempt and that you did not use certain forms of violence sometimes used in such cases.

“The woman’s husband was away and there were only two young children with her in the house when at dead of night you arrived and entered the house without knocking,” said his Honour. “The woman was disturbed she had probably been asleep; you met her in the passage: she yelled out and from your own story you indulged in violence. It is the duty of the Court t» protect women from such attacks and to impose a sentence which will not only deter the offender from repeating the conduct but will* deter other men from acting in the same way.

“This is the first time you have been dealt with on a grave charge,” said his Honour. “It seems that your trouble is liquor and your crime is really attributable to the fact that you were under the influence of drink. “In the circumstances of this case the charge of unlawful conversion is not a matter for consideration and I impose a nominal sentence so that the matter can be disposed of,” said his Honour.