MENACE TO YOUTH

Dominion, Volume 23, Issue 55, 28 November 1929, Page 13

MENACE TO YOUTH

DEPRAVITY OF YOUNG GIRLS “APPALLING AND AMAZING” WIDER POWERS FOR COURT SUGGESTED “The importance of the matter from the public viewpoint is that the papers before me disclose depths of depravity on the’part of young girls of eleven and twelve years which are as appalling as they are amazing. One might hope that such cases are as uncommon as they are appalling, but unfortunately those of us who have to do with criminal law know the contrary.” These comments were made by His Honour Mr. Justice Myers in the supreme Court yesterday when sentencing James "Webster Bittie. aged 28, on two charges of indecent assault on a lemale child nt Petone and two charges of obscene exposure. “Inviting Crime.” “Such girls as these,” said His Honour, “if left at large are and will be a danger not only to themselves but a menace to the youth of the community. They are simply inviting the commission of crime of the description which the prisoner has committed.”

His Honour said that, the case was a very painful one from two points of view. It was painful from the prisoner’s point of view and also from the viewpoint of the public, in that circumstances jvere disclosed to which His Honour considered it was the bounden duty of the Court to draw attention in somewhat forcible terms. It appears that the prisoner had up to the present time borne an excellent character and had been a decent and respectable citizen.- In dealing with the case His Honour would take that into consideration. “This case is the fourth within the short space of less than one month in which there has been evidence before this Court of depravity of the most serious kind on the part of young girls. I referred to this particular aspect of the matter in a case that came before me some three weeks ago, and I should not have made special mention now but for the gasc of the two girls in the case. Giving Court Power. “My regret,” confined His Honour, "is that there is no power in this Court, on the disclosure of such cases as this, to commit the girls to an institution for a term of years for correction and discipline. I make the suggestion that this Court should be invested with such powers, and I commend that suggestion to the consideration of the proper authorities. " It is unfortunate, in a way, that the full facts of this case and others of a similar kind as disclosed by the depositions are unpublishable. If they could be published I am satisfied the community would be greatly shocked and would agree with every word I have spoken.” In ordering prisoner to be imprisoned for twelve calendar months' for reformative treatment, His Honour said he considered that the ends of justice would be sufficiently met by such a sentence.