Four discharged on sex offences

Press, 17 January 1986, Page 12

Four discharged on sex offences

Blenheim reporter Four young men were discharged without conviction in the District Court at Blenheim on Wednesday on sex offences involving a girl, aged 13. Judge Seeman refused application by counsel for suppression of defendants’ names, but the complainant’s name was suppressed. The defendants were Karl Robin Herron, aged 26, a ranger (Mr Michael Turner); David Jason Kerr, aged 17, an apprentice electrician; Darren John May, aged 18, a farmhand; and lan Richard Hammond, aged 18, a factory hand, the last three represented by Mr Alan Corskie. Herron and Hammond were charged with indecently assaulting a girl, aged 13, while Kerr and May faced charges of unlawful sexual intercourse with the same girl. The offences took place in Seddon in September and November last year. SeniorSergeant Brian Pope told the Court that in that

period, the complainant often went on escapades about Seddon and had become intimate with a number of youthi She had since sought medical treatment and would be attending school out of the district. Senior-Sergeant Pope said that the initiative had largely come from the complainant. The Judge said that he was treating the defendants as first offenders. The police had accepted that their involvement was the tip of the iceberg; it would be unjust to convict them in these circumstances; that

did not mean that they were blameless. They obviously lacked judgment and a sense of propriety. In rejecting counsels’ applications for suppressions of names, the Judge said it would be unreal to suppress their names when there were perhaps 100 people in the gallery. It would lead to rumour and speculation. Kerr, May, and Hammond were ordered to pay Court costs of $35 each and prosecution charges of $65 each, and Herron, the oldest, was ordered to pay $35 Court costs and $lOO in prosecution costs.