Heavy Multiple Rape Sentences

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30562, 3 October 1964, Page 13

Heavy Multiple Rape Sentences

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright)

SYDNEY, October 2.

Five young Sydney men have been sentenced in Sydney’s Central Criminal Court in the last 24 hours to life imprisonment for rape.

Sentencing them today, Mr Justice McClemens said the two teen-age girls they had attacked had been subjected to degradation and humiliation such as no hupian being should ' be expected to endure. The men are Lionel Robert

• Burton, aged 21, and Peter j Richard Holmes, aged 19, I both of the suburb of LiverI pool. Last night Mr Justice Col- ! lins sentenced to life irnpris- - onment James Thomas Logan, aged 19, of Canley t Vale, John Russel Leland.

aged 19, of Hillview, and George Eric Johnson, aged 20, of Moorebank, for, raping another teen-age girl in a separate incident. Mr Justice Collins described this incident as “probably the worst case of rape in the history of New South Wales.” Seven companions of the three meh were also found guilty and sentenced to gaol terms ranging from seven to 15 years. In today’s proceedings Mr Justice McClemens said the girls had been put into a state of terror so abject that their minds were not clear of the events., “There has been such an epidemic of these cases, recently, that anyone who comes from this bench cannot but be appalled,” he said. “Yesterday we had a case of 10 men against one girl. On Monday a tria' finished in which four men were involved with one girl. In this case there were 14 men and two girls.