MENTAL DEFECTS

Evening Post, Volume LXXXV, Issue 57, 8 March 1913, Page 5

MENTAL DEFECTS

CASES OF TWO PRISONERS PROCEDURE UNDER THE ACT. His Honour Mr. Justice Chapman found some difficulty to-day in dealing with the 16-year-old girl, Ivy Myrtle Strong, who recently pleaded guilty to a charge of arson in setting fire to the Presbyterian Girls' Orphanage, at Karori. Mr. H. H. Ostler, on behalf of the ! Crown, Btated that the girl appeared to have a propensity for setting places on fire. The girl had been badly brought up, and got beyond her mother's ccn» trol. There, were several cases previous to the present where houses in which the prisoner had resided had caught fire. She happened to be the only person present. Such cases occurred at Feilding, when she lived there, and subsequently, at Taihape in June last, the house where she , lived was entirely destroyed. Her conversation was moßtly about fires. Mr. Ostler suggested that perhaps the best method of treatment would be to commit the girl to the Te Oranga Home, an industrial school for the reformation of girls. The trouble was that the Act, apparently, did not provide for the reception'of girls over 16 by simple committal by the Judge. The order of the Governor was required in cases over 16 and under 19 for detention in a reformative institution, either in lieu of sentence or after a term of imprisonment had been served. The only course was, apparently, to impose some sentence, and leave it to the Governor to act in the direction suggested. The detention would be until the girl was 21 years of His Honjjur agreed that this was, apparently, the only wr.y. He pointed out 'to the girl the terrible consequences that setting fire to a house might entail, and Explained the nature of the punishment it was proposed to inflict. She would be detained in the industrial school Until the age of 21 years, when it watt to be hoped she would have more sense. A Sentence of three months' imprisonment Was imposed on the girl, with instructions to the gaoler that she should be kept apart from the other inmates of the gaol, and recommendation to the Minister of Justice to bring the case Under the notice of His Excellency the Governor. His Honour added that an amendment of the Act would be advisable in the direction of giving the Judges direct power to order prisoners in cases of this kind, under the age of 19, to be committed to industrial schools! An ex-Burnham boy, Francis Henry Gordon Guildford, aged 21, appeared to receive sentence on two charges, to which he had pleaded guilty, of breaking, entering, and theft. Mr. H. F. O'Leary, on behalf of the prisoner, stated that there appeared to be a mental defect in the family, but that the boy, since coming out of Burnham, had, through the trade he had learned there of bookbinding, contributed to the support of his mother. He trusted there might be some means of keeping "the boy under control without Bending him to prison. Mr. Ostler, tor the Crown, said the prisoner's record was not very good. The prisoner's brother, who had been found guilty of a. gross offence, was now an inmate of a mental hospital, and his eister had given birth to three illegitimate children, and had been convicted of .theffc. His Honour imposed a sentence of two years' detention for reformative treatment, suggesting that he should be sent to Invercargill Gaol, if there was sufficient room there.