CRIMINAL SITTINGS

Evening Star, Issue 17920, 16 March 1922, Page 9

CRIMINAL SITTINGS

AUCKLAND. At the Supreme Court vVhakatutee t ani X’eka a Maori vouth, was sentenced to six years’ hard* labor for rape upon a thirteen-year-old girl at Mociigtwahinc. Mr Justice Herdman said lie regretted that he could not order a birching, j GISBORNE. I Albert Edmond Bourgeois, who was ! found malty or manslaughter, with a recommendation to mercy, came up for sentence. The evidence called showed that accused bore the reputation of a careful motor-driver, Mr Justice Hood said_ that the matter of punishment had occasioned him some anxiety. It was a case of the usual disregard for public safety. It was i not a case, however, which called for ■ punishment or imprisonment. Accused had been negligent, and such negligence brought him under the provisions of the Crimea Act, The jury felt that the difference between accused’s negligence and the necligenco of others, who had done the same and escaped with a fine for a breach of the by-laws or escaped altogether, was that his "act caused a collision which resulted in the death of a human being. 1 The Jury evidently felt that the circumi stancesAa dark night and drizzle, added to a poorly-lighted vehicle—-were strong contributory causes. A large proportion of motorists habitually disregarded the rules of the road. It could not bo too widely known that whore an accident I followed and death resulted the olicncler was criminally liable. His Honor thought that the proper course in this easy would be to impose a. fine of BICO and order the payment of the costs of the prosecution. | [The case arose out of a collision between accused’s motor car and a yig, from which Kathleen Joyce Brown was thrown and fatally injured.]