GAOL SENTENCE STANDS

Evening Star, Issue 22526, 19 December 1936, Page 10

GAOL SENTENCE STANDS

PETITION TO MINISTER REJECTED [Per United Press Association.] AUCKLAND, December 18. The Minister of Justice (the Hon. H. G. R. Mason) has refused to release from gaol Thomas Curran, who was sentenced in Auckland on November 19 to two months’ imprisonment on a charge of keeping a common gaming house. Shortly after the hearing of the case in the Police Court a petition, to which 10,000 signatures were obtained, wa» circulated i,n the city, asking that a portion of the sentence should oe remitted so that' Curran could spend Christmas in freedom. . There has been considerable interest ihV the city regarding the fate of Curran, and this afternoon Curran’s solicitor (Mr Mahony) visited the Mount Eden prison and secured the permission of his client'to make the Minister's verdict public. Mr Mahony said he had received the letter containing the Minister’s decision on December 11. The letter said, inter alia: “ In the circumstances I regret that I am unable to see my way to make any recommendaiton with regard to the sentence imposed last month.” The letter, Mr Mahony added, was in reply to an appeal made earlier by him on behalf of his client for a reconsideration of the sentence in view of peculiar circumstances and of the character of the man himself. “ I take it that this is Mr Mason’s final answer,” Mr Mahony added. “ Whether or not this is the final disposition of the matter in tiew of the petition I have no information to indicate.”