THE PENALTIES

Evening Post, Volume CIV, Issue 12, 14 July 1922, Page 8

THE PENALTIES

PRISONERS SENTENCED

BREAKING AND ENTERING TOO

COMMON,

•"Breaking and entering is Becoming a common offence in this city," said the Chief Justice, Sir Robert Stout, while sentencing two young men, George Alfred Christie and Albert Gooday, at the Supreme Court to-day, "and the Court;cannot allow cases of this class to pass by lightly, it must (!o something to stop the increase of 'crime in this direction, and can only give probation when it is clear that the persons charged have .been of good character and have been working regularly. Neither of you have been doing that.", , His Honour added that in the old days the particular offence, breaking into an hotel," would probably have been- met by the imposition of sentences of seven or eight years' imprisonment. The viewpoint had changed since then, and prisoners would each be sent to prison for six months. . ; .' ' , Arthur Gordon Kale, a lad, who had been guilty of an indecent assault at Carterton, was ordered to «be retained.at the Borstal Institution, InvercargiLl, for reformative detention foT four years. A'Maori lad, Reuben Tawhao Kopu, guilty of breaking, entering, and theft at Carterton, was admitted to probation upon strict fterms. for two years, ■ his Honour remarking that prisoner's trouble appeared to have been due to drink. William Arthur Woods; who had stolen two revolvers and a watch from a friend's room at Hawera, and who had previously been before the Court on a charge of theft, was sentenced to three years' reformative detention. Karl Johan Bartel Sundstrom and Philip Gurin admitted the theft of a sheep, but explained that they had been camping in the back country of Taranaki, "eighteen miles from the nearest village with a butcher's shop," and had killed a stray sheep which wandered into the camp after the remainder of the mob had been mustered. His Honour ;%;reed that the case was not one of sheep-stealing of a serious type, but remarked that the mutton would prove expensive. Each man was ordered to pay £4 expenses, and was placed on probation upon strict terms for two years.

A young man, Raymond Woodward, was called to the dock for punishment for his disregard of his. probationary license. His Honour remarked that Woodward had already been before the Courts on several occasions for breaches of his probation, and sentenced him to two years' reformative detention.