Detention proposed for youth with chain

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 32847, 22 February 1972, Page 14

Detention proposed for youth with chain

A youth convicted of carrying an offensive weapon—a chain whip—and threatening a policeman was told by Mr P. L. Mollneaux, S.M., that his offences called for detention centre training. Kevin Patrick Kearns, aged 19, a van driver (Mr R. B. Leete), was ordered to be medically examined for detention at Waikeria when he appeared for sentence in the Magistrate’s Court yesterday. He had previously denied the charges, and an additional one of resisting a constable. “I was shocked to see such a dreadful instrument, one swing of which could deprive someone of an ear or part of his face, the Magistrate said. "The Court has a duty to nand out summary punishment to discourage others from carrying such weapons,” he said. He said he would not allow anyone to wander around the streets of Christchurch with a hammer, knife or club. (Several such weapons were produced as exhibits when Kearns’s case was j heard last Monday J

The charge of threatening a constable arose from an incident outside the public hospital a week after the offensive weapon charge. Kearns told Constable R. M. Carr: “Wait until I get you up a dark alley.” The Magistrate said that having heard both charges he found it difficult not to associate the weapon in the first with the threat in the second. On a charge of resisting a constable, Kearns was convicted and discharged. On the other two charges, which the Magistrate said had “an ugly ring- about them,” Kearns was remanded to February 25 for the medical examination. Mr Leete said that although the chain whip w-as a “vicious looking weapon, there was no question of the defendant brandishing or threatening to use it.’ He said that Kearns had made the later threat to Constable Carr after being annoyed about the refusal of hospital staff to treat his finger. Kearns had not appeared before the Court for a year. “He plans to go to Australia as soon as this business is cleared up,” said Mr Leete.