“NO CONTROL OVER ACTIONS”

Dominion, Volume 21, Issue 190, 14 May 1928, Page 3

“NO CONTROL OVER ACTIONS”

$ “When you leave the Institute you will be twenty-three years of age, and I trust that you will co-operate with the authorities in an endeavour to regain control over vour nature and that j-ou will at least make an attempt to lead a straight and useful life, unless you are to go downhill and end in complete disaster. I trust you will take this lesson to heart.” With these words, Mr. Justice Smith, in the Supreme Court on Saturday, sentenced John George Furey, aged 19 years, who had pleaded guilty to having committed indecent acts on a male, to detention in a Borstal Institute for four years. . His Honour said he appreciated from the circumstances that had been brought before the Court by his counsel (Mr. P. Keesing) that the prisoner had been, to a large extent, guided and controlled by his association with a man much older than himself. But it was quite clear also that prisoner had been associating with people of a most undesirable kind, and indulging in literature of an indecent nature. At, the present time, be stood unclean both in mind and in body. His will was corrupted, and he seemed to have no control over his actions. His only chance to reform was a long term of discipline. He would be ordered to be detained in a Borstal Institute for four years, the term to be concurrent with a two-year sentence which he received recently.