CRUEL AND ODIOUS

Dominion, Volume 24, Issue 52, 25 November 1930, Page 10

CRUEL AND ODIOUS

Crime of Blackmail YOUTH PUNISHED Discipline and Training Needed Dominion Special Service. Dunedin, November 24. “Blackmail is a cruel and odious crime,” said His Honour Mr. Justice Kennedy in the Supreme Court this morning in sentencing Albert George Ashton to two years’ detention in the Borstal Institution. The charges to which accused had pleaded guilty were those of with menaces, demanding money with intent to steal and of attempted false pretences. Mr. R. M. Rutherford on behalf of the prisoner, said that Ashton came of a good family, his parents being respectable and hard working. He was only nineteen years of age and had been working in the Post Office for the last five and a half years. It seemed that the offence was committed rather to hurt the feelings of the people concerned . than to get money. Through losing his position in the service prisoner had already been very severely punished, and as it was not likely he would offend again counsel suggested that in the circumstances probation might be granted. The Crown Prosecutor (Mr. F. B. Adams) said he found it difficult to understand the suggestion that there was no criminal intent, because the letters that had been written by accused not only showed a perfectly definite and clear intention but also a considerable degree of imagination and ingenuity. His Honour said that in plain language prisoner started to blackmail'a man about to marry and after his marriage continued the blackmail. Blackmail was a cruel and odious crime and when it was committed by an adult then in general the only fitting punishment was a term of hard labour. It was true that prisoner was but a young man and consideration had been given to that circumstance, but a perusal of the offensive letters which he had caused to be sent showed that in his case there was great need of institutional discipline and training. His blackmail took its most vicious form in threats affecting the intimate personal and family relationship of the persons concerned. He did not even hesitate to impugn the honour of a young man recently deceased to his parents. It also appeared from the statement of accused that he stole a postal packet, though there was no charge brought against him. _ Taking all the circumstances into consideration it was not a proper case for probation.