ASSAULT ON WOMAN

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29992, 29 November 1962, Page 17

ASSAULT ON WOMAN

Sentenced To Gaol A man whom a jury convicted of indecent assault on a young woman, but acquitted of attempted rape, was sentenced to six months’ gaol by Mr Justice Richmond in the Supreme Court yesterday. The term is to be followed by a year’s probation. A jury had convicted Clinton Wilson, aged 50 (Mr S. H. Wood) of indecent assault on a married woman aged 24 ait his house on July 19.

His Honour said he must make every allowance for the jury's virdiot acquitting Wilson of attempted rape. The verdict meant that essentially the jury was satisfied that having induced the woman to come to his house by a trick, Wilson assaulted her in circumstances aitter.ded by indecency. It was the sort of conduct from which the Courts had to protect womenfolk, and in view of Wilson's conviction in 1959 for another case of indecent assault, he would have to go to gaol. Mr Wood said there was little he could say in mitigation. except that possibly some sort of submission or consent by the woman could be implied at a later stage. So, in those circumstances, the assault was possibly not so grave when it was on a person whose state of mind was as the woman’s seemed to have been. Mr Wood submitted that the probation officer’s remark that Wilson had been dealt with harshly by both nature and environment was a fair appraisal.