REPORTS ON ACCUSED

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29830, 24 May 1962, Page 14

REPORTS ON ACCUSED

Need Stressed By Judge (N.Z. Press Association) AUCKLAND, May 23. Probation reports should be obtained by magistrates before imposing sentences. Mr Justice Boys said in Auckland today. He was hearing appeals by Robert Wilfred Coombridge, aged 22. a workman, who had been sentenced to two years’ gaol on a number of charges involving dishonesty and Richard William Fitzgerald, aged 43, a workman, sentenced to 12 months’ gaol on a charge of theft His Honour said the disturbing feature about the appeals was that the appellants had been sentenced by the Magistrate who had not obtained a probation officer’s report. “This Court would not impose such sentences withou' such a report, and it would not embark on the hearing of an appeal without one.” he said

"It means that the Magistrate would have before him no information concerning the response of the appellant to previous endeavours to reform him. nothing concerning his record in employment, his health, his family responsibilities. his mental condition, education and all those other factors whict the Court must take into account when it balances the need to protect society and dete; others from crime against the primary requirements of considering the reformation of the offender.”

His Honour dismissed both appeals, saying: “It is entirely a matter of accident that without the aid of a probation report the Magistrate happens to have imposed sentences with which this Court will not now interfere.”