NOT YET GIVEN

Evening Post, Volume CXXXI, Issue 101, 1 May 1941, Page 11

NOT YET GIVEN

FLOGGING FOR ESCAPED

PRISONERS

The flogging ordered for the four prisoners .who escaped from the Auckland prison on the evening of October 1 has not yet been administered. Twenty strokes each and the addition of 12 years' imprisonment with hard labour to terms they were serving on other charges was the judgment delivered by Mr. Justice Blair in the Auckland Supreme Court in February, states an exchange. Two prisoners appealed against the sentence on the ground of its severity, but the Appeal Court on April 9 dismissed the appeal. While making their escape, the four prisoners gravely injured an elderly warder and two others less seriously. In delivering the judgment of the Appeal Court, which dismissed the appeals of Silver and O'Hehir, the Chief Justice, Sir-Michael Myers, said the punishment imposed was undoubtedly severe, but the circumstances called for severity. Section 27 of the Crimes Act, 1908, says that the flogging ordered by the Judge has to be carried out within six months of the time sentence was r>assed.