SORDID CIRCUMSTANCES

Evening Star, Issue 21641, 9 February 1934, Page 9

SORDID CIRCUMSTANCES

APPALLING CONDITIONS IN NASEBY HOUSEHOLD MAH SENT TO GAOL As the final act of very sordid happenings at Naseby last year, Horace Acosta Martin, an Argentine, fifty years of age, was this morning sentenced by His Honour Mr Justice Kennedy to imprisonment with hard labour for two years and six months on three charges of carnal knowledge, of which a jury had convicted him. Mr C. J. L. White, who appeared for the prisoner, said Martin was fifty years of age. He was born in 1884, and was of mixed blood —Spanish and South American Indian. In his early days he had had a most adventurous career, having served five countries either as a sailor or a soldier. As a youth he served with the Argentine Navy, and later was in the Chilean army in the war between Chile and Bolivia. Then he joined the Mexican army, and took part in the revolution of 1905. Finally he joined the American navy, and came to New Zealand with it in 1908. Taking a liking to New Zealand, he decided to return. Counsel contended that the fact of Martin having served in the United States navy showed that at the time lie war; a man of some reputation. Deciding to return to New Zealand, Martin collected his wife and children, who were in Europe, and set out. On the way to this country he worked oil the Panama Canal and other jobs. He reached Wellington in 1912, and found employment there. He volunteered for service during the Great War, and was on transport duty during the whole of that period. Accused had told counsel that ho was three times in vessels that were torpedoed, and that on one occasion he was adrift for seventeen days. In 1920 his wife and three children died, and from that time it seemed he had started on the downward course. In 1924 he married a native woman, but she also died. Again he seemed to drift. He was convicted of breaking and entering, and served a term of imprisonment. Counsel pointed out that, although accused’s list was not very creditable, it was entirely clean till the present occasion of sexual offences. Dealing with the charges for which Martin was before the court, counsel said it was an unfortunate day for him when he came into contact with the mother of the girls. Martin was opposed to going to her house to stay, but by her persistence she got him there. The appalling conditions of the household came out fully in the evidence, and the court learned of the bad conditions in which the children were brought up. The woman, by her conduct, forced the children on to Martin. The accused should have been proof against temptation, but there did seem to be mitigation for the offences. In his own country the thing was proably not serious. It was also fairly clear that the moral welfare of the girls would very soon have suffered in such a household whether the accused was there or not. There was the unnatural and dreadful fact that the mother per sisted in trying to bring about the commission of the offence. Accused was a hard-working man, and had already been in gaol for about four months, and counsel asked His Honour to take those matters and the other. circumstances into account in passing sentence. The Crown Prosecutor (Mr F. B. Adams) handed the police report to His Honour, and said he had nothing to add to it. His Honour said the prisoner appeared for sentence upon three charges of carnal knowledge of girls under the age of sixteen years. One of the girls was thirteen and the other somewhat older. Accused was a man of fifty years, and, although ho was resident in a home where the father was for the most part absent on relief work, and where tho mother was without morals herself, and, unnatural as it might seem, encouraged tho acts which led to intimacy, his acts were spread over a period, and were committed in respect of two girls. He had been content for a period to share a room with a girl of thirteen years. Some of the charges for which accused had previously been before the court were not Of great gravity, but othors were more serious Tlie present offences were the gravest he had committed. His Honour went on to say that, after making the fullest allowance for the apathy of the father and for what encouragement in the crime might be attributable to the mother, he found he must in regard to other circumstances impose a sentence on each charge. He would give such weight as he thought he should to tho mitigating circumstances mentioned by counsel. 'The sentence of the court was that, in respect to each charge the accused be imprisoned with hard labour for a period of two years and six mouths, the sentences to be concurrent.