ATTEMPTED RAPE CHARGE

Press, Volume XCVI, Issue 28321, 5 July 1957, Page 14

ATTEMPTED RAPE CHARGE

Kitchenhand Posed As Policeman

(New Zealand Press Association) AUCKLAND, July 4.

David Allen Ferry, aged 48, a kitchenhand, pleaded guilty to charges of attempted rape, posing as a police officer, and obtaining £l3 by false pretences in the Auckland Magistrate’s Court today. Mr R. M. Grant, S.M., committed him to the Supreme Court for sentence on the attempted rape charge. When he has been dealt with there, he will be sentenced in the Lower Court on the other charges. A 17-year-old girl told the Court that when she and a sailor were kissing in Albert Park about 10.45 p.m. on June 20, Ferry came up with a torch in his hand. He called her companion aside and then asked her her age. He told her partner to go home and said he would take her home. Claimed to be Sergeant The girl said Ferry told her he was a policeman and had been in the force 19 years. He told her she was in the wrong and asked her whether she would rather he went to the police station and have them tell her mother, or whether the two of them should talk it over. Thinking he was a policeman, she agreed to talk it over. He said he was “Sergeant Parkinson” from Christchurch and said, when asked, that he carried his identification card in his overcoat.

The girl said Ferry then asked her a certain question and she thought she shoul# comply with his wish. They went in a taxi to Victoria Park, where misconduct occurred. Ferry then leaving her, saying he had to get back to work.

The girl said Ferry told her that if she reported the occurrence his word would be accepted before hef% and she would get three month*.