SUPREME COURT Assault sentence on life prisoner cut

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32565, 26 March 1971, Page 11

SUPREME COURT Assault sentence on life prisoner cut

Stanley Winwood McKissock Reid, aged 66, described by counsel (Mr M. J. Glue) as the longestserving prisoner in New Zealand, successfully appealed in the Supreme Court yesterday against a sentence of nine months imprisonment imposed in the Magistrate’s Court on a charge of assaulting a woman. The Chief Justice (Sir Richard Wild) substituted a term of three months imprisonment on Reid, who is serving a term of life imprisonment for murder., Mr N. W. Williamson appeared for the Crown. Reid had pleaded guilty to the charge of assault and there was nothing to indicate a sexual motive, said Mr Glue.

After spending more than 25 years m prison Reid was on the point of gaining his freedom when the sentence was imposed. He had been a model prisoner. The appellant had been working as a cleaner at Bumham on a pre-release licence after serving a long term of imprisonment, said his Honour when giving his decision. He grabbed a woman cleaner around the shoulders and put a handkerchief over her mouth. She struggled, bit his hand and freed herself. On being interviewed the appellant said he was confused and that he had no intention of hurting the woman but that something had snapped inside his head.

Mr Glue had made the point that the magistrate misapprehended the facts when he said that the appellant seized the woman by the throat. That had been conceeded by the Crown. But to discharge Reid under section 42 of the Criminal Justice Act would be to ignore the public interest which the magistrate had so rightly stressed. “However, in all the circumstances the Court is justified in reducing the sentence. It was an impulsive act committed by a man trying to rehabilitate himself to new conditions after a long term in prison. His prison record has been exemplary and he is entitled to credit

for that. This is a case in which the Court can rightly show sortie mercy,” said his Honour. Appeal dismissed His Honour dismissed an appeal by Graham Luther Edgeworth, aged 20, a workman (Mr J. E. Butler), against a sentence of 18 months imprisonment imposed in the Magistrate’s Court on charges of burglary and unlawfully taking a car. Decision reserved Decision was reserved on an appeal by Wayne James Hawker against conviction and sentence on a charge of wilfully committing an act of aggravated cruelty to a cat in Maces Road, Bromley, on August 26. Hawker had been fined $3O and ordered to pay a solicitor’s fee of $3O, witnesses’ expenses of $16.25 and court costs of $5. Mr S. G. Erber appeared for Hawker.