ARSON AND THEFT

Press, Volume C, Issue 29518, 20 May 1961, Page 13

ARSON AND THEFT

Three Years’ Gaol

Warning John Valentine Spencer, aged 46. that he was now eligible for preventive detention (from three to 14 years' gaol), Mr Justice Richmond in the Supreme Court yesterday sentenced him to three years' gaol on charges of arson and theft.

Spencer was appearing for sentence after being convicted in the Magistrate's Court on May 8. 1961, on both charges, stealing a camera and setting fire to a house at 338 Armagh street.

His Honour said that the prisoner had lit a fire in a women's flat when she was asleep, and must have known that she might not have wakened, and died in the fire.

“Having regard to all your counsel has said, the minimum sentence I can impose is one of three years’ gaol and that is the sentence on the charge of arson,” said his Honour. He said the theft of the camera was a blatant piece of dishonesty, and imposed a sentence of one year's gaol on that charge, the sentences to be served concurrently. For Spencer. Mr B. J Drake said that his two present offences had occurred within two days. It was probable that the prisoner was in an advanced state of intoxication when he lit the fire. The prisoner’s own evidence was that he had been drinking all day when he took the camera from a shop disnlay stand. "The setting fire of material in the woman's flat seems to be largely the act of a drunken man who had had a quarrel with the woman with whom he was living,” counsel said.