BLACKMAIL

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 122, 16 February 1935, Page 6

BLACKMAIL

A sentence in the Auckland Supreme Court of three years’ hard labour for blackmail is none too severe for this particularly despicable class of offence. Blackmail, it is welLknown, is very prevalent in the older countries. To what extent it may be practised here is, of course, impossible to say. The reluctance of those victimised to come forward with charges and evidence enables the scoundrels who engage in this form of extortion to carry on their schemes in comparative safety from detection. Now and then a victim, goaded to sheer desperation, decides that publicity is the lesser evil. It is important for the suppression of the blackmailer, and for the peace of mind of members of the community who may be unfortunate enough to be terrified and cowed by his threats; that the publicity attached to criminal proceedings against offenders should be reduced to a minimum. In the Auckland case the victim’s name was suppressed. . Furthermore, counsel for the prosecution, the Bench concurring, pointed out that whether the person blackmailed was guilty or not of the offence of which he was accused by the blackmailer did not affect the position at all. The victim of the blackmail could not go into any defence of the allegations made against him, for that' matter was not being investigated. All that the law was concerned about was whether or not blackmail had been committed.

# That is a very important point, and it should afford some encouragement to people pestered by these blackguards to call their bluff and institute proceedings. It is much more essential that the blackmailer should be caught, and severely punished, than that his victim should he held liable for some indiscretion of the past on no worthier cause than the accusation of the blackmailer. Such an accusation is tainted by its source.