SUPREME COURT

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 107, 6 May 1926, Page 11

SUPREME COURT

"A MENAGE TO THE PUBLIC"

Walter Daniel Fisher came up for sentence before his Honour Mr. Justice Eeod in the Supreme Court this morning on a charge of indecent exposure to which he had pleaded guilty. Mr. A. B. Sievwright, who appeared for the prisoner, stated that the young man. had supported his parents, who were both physically afflicted. Ho was a good worker when employed, But the fact that his work was purely casual I encouraged him to come to the city in the slack periods, when he indulged in liquor and drifted into committing offences of the character of which he now stood charged. * His Honour pointed out that the prisoner was sexually depraved and constituted a menace to the public. He already had a record. Fisher was 35 years of age, and his Honour expressed doubt if a man could be cured of this class of offence at the prisoner's age. He was at present serving a sentence for a crime of a similar character committed after the offence he now stood charged with. Counsel asked that his Honour should deal leniently with the prisoner, who would be placed under strict supervision for twelve months, at the end of which he would be likely to bocome a respectable member of the comniunity. His Honour, however, decided that tho best way to deal with Fisher was to sentence him to three yearg' reformative detention, tho sentence to be cumulative on his present term. The case would in.due course come before the notice of the Prisons Board. "It is not a question of punishing this man," concluded his Honour, "but a matter of protecting society." At yesterday's sitting of the Court, Charlotte Mather, for whom Mr. E. P. Bunny appeared, and who had pleaded guilty to arson in Upper Hutt, appeared for sentence. His Honour said that he had fully considered the circumstances, and it appeared that Mather had acted childishly rather than criminally. She was admitted to probation for'two years, and ordered to pay .costs. Fixing the terms of the probation granted the previous day to Trevor James Phillips, his Honour said he believed the prisoner's statement that he never intended to pass the cheque, but it was a forgery nevertheless, and he must pay the coats of the proceedings, .£l2 18s, and the £8 owing to the owners of the confectionery shop.