Supreme Court SENTENCE REDUCED

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32637, 19 June 1971, Page 19

Supreme Court SENTENCE REDUCED

Prison term halved

A sentence of one year’s imprisonment imposed on Allan Robert Pascoe, aged 22, a welder, in the Invercargill Magistrate’s Court on two charges of burglary, was reduced to one of six months by Mr Justice Wilson in the Supreme Court yesterday. Pascoe, who was represented by Mr C. A. McVeigh, appealed against the sentence.

“It has been shown that the magistrate gave inadequate weight to the serious and largely successful efforts of the appellant to lead an honest life,” said his Honour.

“It is a shame that he gave way to drink and got involved in the offences. The sentence of imprisonment is appropriate, but one year is too long and it will be varied to one of six months.”

Tory John Waaka, aged 25, a truck-driver, appealed against a sentence of three years imprisonment imposed in the Invercargill Magistrate’s Court on two charges of burglary and one of unlawfully taking a motorvehicle. The appeal was dismissed.

Mr E. T. Higgins appeared for the appellant. His Honour said that the probation officer’s report said that Waaka showed no contrition over the offences. Waaka had reconciled himself to a life of crime in which incarceration would figure more prominently than his periods of freedom, and at that stage the question of the protection of society would seem to weigh more heavily than the hope of reformation.

An appeal by Brian Douglas Gunn, aged 20, unemployed, against a sentence of 18 months imprisonment imposed in the Invercargill Magistrate’s Court on six charges of burglary, one of false pretences, one of credit by fraud, and one of unlawfully getting into a car, was dismissed, Mr R. F. B. Powell appeared for the appellant.