Court Appearance “Not Experiment”

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 31994, 22 May 1969, Page 22

Court Appearance “Not Experiment”

(New Zealand Press Association) WELLINGTON, May 21. “You are not here for a laboratory experiment, but to answer to a crime,” Mr R. D. Jamieson, S.M., told a 21-year-old university student in the Magistrate’s Court today.

Last week the court was told that the defendant had stolen $2O “in order to observe, as an exercise, the subsequent inquiry and interrogation.”

The girl, who had pleaded not guilty to the charge of theft, appeared for sentence today. The Magistrate* adjourned the matter foy two months without entering a conviction. He described the case as peculiar, and said the girl appeared to be rather divorced from reality. He extended for the period of the adjournment the interim order of suppression of name made last week. The case was being adjourned “on the clear understanding that the defendant will keep in touch with the probation service.”

Further inquiries into the matter would be made by the Probation Service and on

July 23 he would examine a probation report If this report proved unsatisfactory he would deal with the matter at that stage. If it was encouraging he would consider a further adjournment In a report presented today, the Probation Service suggested that the case be dealt with by an adjournment without a conviction. The submissions of Mr M. A. Bungay, counsel for the defence, supported this suggestion. Mr Bungay said the defendant’s explanation for taking the money was intriguing, but not a defence in' law.

The defendant applied to life a totally subjective attitude, and was obviously in need of some sort of guidance.

The girl had assured him she would accept counselling from the Probation Service. The Magistrate told the defendant she was being treated with “great leniency.”