MAXIMUM PENALTY IMPOSED

Evening Star, Issue 23270, 19 May 1939, Page 8

MAXIMUM PENALTY IMPOSED

ASSAULT WITH INTENT TO ROB OLD MAN HIT ON THE HEAD fPer United Press Association.] CHRISTCHURCH, May 19. The maximum penalty of three years’ imprisonment was imposed by Mr Justice Northcroft in the Supreme Court to-day on Walter Sydney Newell for assault with intent to rob. The accused had admitted hitting an old man over the head in the public gardens. On Newell’s behalf Air Twynehani said that the accused was a single man aged 33. He had come to Christchurch from Hamilton only about a month before he committed the present offence. He was without money and was staying with friends. He was unable to explain why he committed the offence, as he had never before used violence. He was on probation for the theft of a bicycle at the time. A mental observation showed that Newell was free from any abnormality, said His Honour. It might have been open to the police to charge him under a different section of the Act, under which he could have been sent to prison for life. By tho section under which Newell had been charged the maximum penalty was three years’ imprisonment with hard labour, and this wes the sentence that would be imposed. ‘