“I DESERVE IT”

Dominion, Volume 23, Issue 33, 2 November 1929, Page 7

“I DESERVE IT”

YOUNG MAN’S CRIME “BEEN A BIG FOOL” • Palmerston North, November 1. “I’ve been a big fool, Your Honour, and I suppose I deserve it,” said Victor James Jamieson when he appeared before Mr. Justice Blair in the Palmerston North Supreme Court this morning for sentence on a charge of breaking and entering and theft from a store at Kelvin Grove on September 22. His Honour: *Tm afraid, Jamieson, your record is a very bad one. It looks as if you have made up your mind to more or less follow a life of crime. It is very difficult to know what to do with you.” Prisoner: “I know I’ve been letting myself go the last two months.” His Honour: “It looks as if you have let yourself go for considerably longer than two months. What about those charges in 1907?” Prisoner: “They were only pranks. There were a lot of other boys concerned.”

His Honour: “Yes, but you had a long sentence in 1917.”

Prisoner: “I don’t expect you to believe me, but if you looked up the facts of that case, Your Honour, you would find that I know nothing about the charge even now.” Prisoner then went on to say that everywhere he had been everything had been against him. Information had been given his employers regarding his misdeeds, and he had been sacked. "Two hours after I was married the police told my i ife’s people about that ease in 1917, and separation orders followed,” said prisoner. “Everything went wrong. I have had a false idea about the police until lately, when I have received better treatment Although I was receiving good money I have had to drop everything.” His Honour: “Are you not serving a sentence now?” Prisoner: “I have let myself go in the last two months and did not care.” “I am taking into consideration that you have made a clean breast of this affair,’s said His Honour, in imposing sentence. “This is a very serious offence. I am assuming, however, that you have worked honestly since 1917 until this last time.” A sentence of two years’ reformative detention, to be concurrent with one and a half years’ reformative detention accused is now serving,, was imposed.

“It then remains with the Prisons Board to see whether they will give you another chance,” observed His Honour.