Three Years’ Probation

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31209, 5 November 1966, Page 21

Three Years’ Probation

A 32-year-old Auckland sheet-metal worker, Henry Tahu, was commended by Mr Justice Wilson in the Supreme CoUrt yesterday for having kept out of trouble for 11 months after unlawfully entering a dwellinghouse in Christchurch, for which offence he was only recently apprehended. His Honour placed Tahu on the maximum of three years’ probation. “You present an unusual picture, but an encouraging one,” his Honour told Tahu. "After spending most of your working life in custody, over the last 18 months, except for this incident—which I’ll regard as a slip—you have shown yourself capable of being an honest and useful citizen.”

Tahu appeared for sentence before his Honour, having changed a former plea of not guilty to one of guilty on a charge of unlawfully entering a house at 37 Macaulay street, Addington, on October 18, 1965.

He was apprehended after discovery that fingerprints left on the window sill of the house matched his own. Counsel for Tahu, Mr R. L. Kerr, pointed out that he had kept out of trouble in the long period between the offence and his subsequent detection, and in doing so had virtually been his own probation officer.

Tahu, after being in and out of prison, had now formed an association with a young woman, settled down, and carried on a proper citizen’s role in society, said Mr Kerr, and for these reasons his probation should be extended. "I’m going to adopt the suggestion of your counsel,” his Honour told Tahu, in passing sentence.