Black Power members jailed six months

Press, 10 August 1985, Page 4

Black Power members jailed six months

Four members of the Black Power group yesterday received six months prison sentences, and two women members were sentenced to periodic detention, arising from their occupancy of the group’s headquarters when the police found a pistol, rifle, and two Molotov cocktails, on March 30. Imposing the sentences in the District Court Judge Fraser said the offences occurred during an extremely tense and emotioncharged period, four days after a homicide in the city. He said evidence at the Court hearing had shown some rivalry with another group a look-out posted, and a meeting planned to discuss the situation. Two associates of the group had been charged as a result of the homicide inquiries. The general situation was one in which there could have been temptation to use the weapons if other events occurred. The consequences to the persons concerned, and to the wider public, were obvious. The Judge said that while personal circumstances had to be taken into account, the deterrent aspect and the public interest had to be considered when imposing sentence. The six defendants were appearing for sentence after being found guilty at the end of a defended hearing of 2Yz days last month, to charges of possessing a .22 semi-automatic pistol loaded with three rounds of ammunition, possessing a .22 rifle without lawful purpose, and possessing restricted weapons, two Molotov cocktails. Six other members of the group had had similar charges dismissed at the completion of the Court hearing.

Those sentenced yesterday had been convicted on the basis of their having admitted, or having been held to be, occupants of the group’s headquarters at the time the police found the weapons. Their prosecution by the police relied on a provision of the Arms Act that, where a person was held to be an occupier of a property in which any weapon was found, he was deemed to be in possession of the weapons unless he proved, on the balance of probabilities, that it was not his property and that it belonged to some other person. Evidence at the hearing was that members of the police armed offenders squad who executed a search warrant on the club’s headquarters in Colombo Street found the rifle wrapped in a blanket, hidden in a chimney, a loaded pistol under a mattress in a bedroom, and two petrol-, filled beer bottles outside the front of the premises. The four men who received jail sentences on these charges were Ardie Beazley, aged 30, William Arthur Houkamau, aged 20 (both represented by Mr G. R. Lascelles), Allan John Emslie, aged 17 (Miss E. H. B. Thompson), and John Daniels, aged 20 (Mr A. M. Mclntosh). Each received six months terms for possession of the pistol, and Molotov cocktails, and a concurrent term of seven days imprisonment for possessing the rifle. Emslie received two additional terms of 14 days imprisonment for unrelated offences. They were for committing a breach of periodic detention, and for unlawfully converting a motor vehicle and unlaw-

fully possessing shotgun cartridges which the police found in this vehicle when it was stopped. Emslie had pleaded guilty to these offences. On the same weapons charges as were faced by the four men, Sonya Katrina Slater, aged 19, received a sentence of five months nonresidential periodic detention, and Neta Shelford, aged 20, four months periodic detention. They were represented by Miss Thompson. The Judge said when sentencing the defendants that, in spite of differences in each defendant’s circumstances and backgrounds, the courts must be evenhanded unless there were clear grounds for distinction. He said the situations of Shelford and Slater were different from the other defendants in that they had lesser records. They were

easily led and their implication in the matter was less than that of the male defendants. That and their personal circumstances warranted their being dealt with in a different way. Counsel for the six' defendants had sought the imposition of terms of periodic detention for the offences. All referred to the fact that the defendants had been convicted because of — as one counsel termed it — a technical application of the ' law. None of the defendants had been proved to have known about the existence of the w’eapons. They were found guilty of possessing them because of their occupation of the premises. ■ After the sentencing Mr Lascelles filed appeals against conviction and sentence on behalf of Beazley and Houkamau.

Sergeant C. M. Maling appeared for the police.