A SERIOUS OFFENCE

Dominion, Volume 22, Issue 72, 18 December 1928, Page 8

A SERIOUS OFFENCE

“NOT A CASE FOR PROBATION.”

In the Supreme Court yesterday Ralph John Garrett, aged 19, on a charge of committing rape at Taihape, was sentenced to two years’ reformative detention in a Borstal Institute. The prisoner, for whom Mr. W. Perry appeared, came before the Court on Friday, when Mr. Justice MacGregor, saying the case was too difficult to deal with without further consideration, remanded him for sentence. On that occasion Garrett was told by His Honour that had he pleaded not guilty and been properly defended he would probably have got off. His Honour yesterday remarked that it was clear that the case was of an unusual kind, and from the circumstances it was plain that it was not an aggravated case of rape, although the prisoner had pleaded guilty to the full offence, and was liable to very severe punishment. Apparently the prisoner was not very strong either in mind or body. The prisoner had pleaded guilty to a charge of rape on a married woman, who was apparently older than himself. It was unusual to grant probation in a case of rape, and in the present instance he did not think he should do so, but instead impose a fairly long term of reformative detention. Referring to a statement made by counsel that Garrett was suffering from a serious skin disease and a term of imprisonment might therefore injure his health. His Honour said that so far as Garrett’s health was concerned he would probably be looked after better in an institution than on a small bush farm where he had been living.