ARSON CASE

Evening Post, Issue 60, 11 March 1936, Page 13

ARSON CASE

SENTENCE VARIED

A variation of the sentence from five years' imprisonment with hard labour to one of five years' reformative detention was made by the Court of Appeal today after it had heard the application for leave to appeal against the sentence made on behalf of Edward Bloomfield McGill, a relief worker, aged 36. McGill was sentenced by Mr. Justice Blair in Palmerston North last month on a charge of arson.

On the Bench today were the Chief Justice (Sir Michael Myers), Mr. Justice Reed, Mr. Justice Ostler, and Mr. Justice Kennedy. Mr. R. Hardie Boys appeared in support of the application and the Solicitot-General (Mr. H. H. Cornish, K,C.) for the Crown.

Mr. Boys said that his instructions were that McGill was supplied with drink to make him. an easy ,tool in the hands of those who sought to use him for the crime, which his subsequent help to the Crown did much to expiate. A number of reputable citizens of Palmerston North, including some Justices of the Peace, supported what he had placed before the Court in seeking its clemency.

The Chief Justice said that the variation of the sentence from hard labour to reformative detention would give McGill an opportunity, if he showed signs of reform, to have a lot of his sentence remitted by the Prisons Board..

The Solicitor-General did not oppose the variation