DR. PAEWAI CASE Prison Term For Attack

Press, Volume CVII, Issue 31409, 30 June 1967, Page 3

DR. PAEWAI CASE Prison Term For Attack

(New Zealand Press Association)

AUCKLAND, June 29.

“This was a very serious murderous attack—about that there can be no question at all,” said Mr Justice Henry today when sentencing Mane Kiri Tahere to seven years’ gaol on a charge of attempting to murder Dr. M. N. Paewai at Kaikohe on April 10.

Tahere, aged 41, a carpenter’s labourer, was found guilty by a jury on June 20 on an attempted murder charge.

He was tried jointly with his wife on this charge and on an alternative charge of injuring the doctor with the intent to do him grievous bodily harm. Mrs Tihe Tahere was found guilty on the alternative charge earlier this month and was ordered to come up for sentence within nine months if called upon. Imposing sentence on Tahere, the Judge said the Court had to treat Tahere as responsible in law and in fact, but the attack clearly was tne result of his mental condition.

Reports before the Court showed that Tahere suffered from a schizophrenic type of illness, delusions of grandeur, and a sense of being persecuted by Dr. Paewai. Medical Reports

Nevertheless, the Court had to impose sentence on the basis of the jury’s verdict. He directed that the medical re-

ports before the Court should be forwarded to the prison authorities.

"It seems fairly certain as a result that you will not be called upon to serve a prison sentence at all and you will be subjected to a certain form of treatment and restraint,” said his Honour. Mr H. R H. Paul submitted that Tahere had been rather less affected by civilisation than other members of his race and had retained his skills in bushcraft, running his large family as he saw fit.

“Here is a man who, through a combination of circumstances, has been stripped of the responsibility of managing his own affairs and the control and organising of his family life,” he said. Tahere had been deprived of the right to be master of his own home. The family’s way of life changed about two or three years ago when Dr. Paewai began to help with the family’s finances. Tahere in the end was not alone in his dissatisfaction in the way the management of his family had been taken out of his hands. In recent months Mrs Tahere had also shown similar concern, said counsel.