Boy sentenced on 15 charges

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 33034, 29 September 1972, Page 2

Boy sentenced on 15 charges

(Neu Zealand Press Association)

WELLINGTON, Sept. 28.

“You are fortunate that you are not standing trial for manslaughter or murder. It is only sheer good fortune and good chance that you are not being dealt with after a tragedy,” Mr J. K. Patterson, S.M., told a 15-year-old boy before him in the Lower Hutt Children’s Court today.

The Magistrate was sentencing the boy on two charges of presenting a rifle, three charges of burglary, three charges of unlawfully taking motor vehicles, four charges of interfering with motor vehicles, two charges of assault, and a charge of carrying an offensive weapon.

At a defended hearing earlier, the Court was told that the boy pointed a rifle at the chest of a police constable and pulled the trigger of the fully-loaded and cocked weapon. The rifle did not fire and the boy was arrested.

The boy pleaded not guilty to the two charges of pre-

tenting a rifle, but these were found proven by the Magistrate.

A second boy, aged 14, who was with the defendant during the incident, had a charge of presenting a rifle at two men in the Epuni boys* home dismissed. However, he also appeared for sentence on a number of charges. He admitted five charges of burglary, two charges of unlawfully taking motor vehicles, wilful damage, assault, depositing dangerous litter, and receiving.

Counsel for the older boy, Mr I. Kwok, submitted that the boy should be able to obtain psychiatric treatment. The Magistrate told the boy that he had been kept in custody during the remand and he now knew what it meant.

He described the boy as a “stupid fellow” who thought that the attractions of the news media and others’ egging on was something of substance. He sentenced him to a period of Borstal training.

After hearing submissions from Mr R. J. Buddle, the Magistrate placed the younger boy under the care of the Social Welfare Department.