FLOGGING PREFERRED

Greymouth Evening Star, 5 August 1929, Page 10

FLOGGING PREFERRED

AN UNUSUAL REQUEST. AUCKLAND, August 2. “If you would place me on probation, say, for three years, and order me 25 lashes, I think it would do me more good than sending me to prison, your Honor. This extraordinary request came from a diminutive young man named Leslie Alfred John Walters, who pleaded guilty before Mr; Wyvern Wilson at Hamilton to-day to obtaining credit for £1 10s by fraud at Wellington. Walters, who is 25 years of age, recently went to a boarding-house in Wellington, and telling the proprietor, Thomas Hayman, that Mr. Wilson, a horse trainer of Takapuna would pay his board, obtained food and lodging to the value stated. Detective-Sergeant Thompson said accused had admitted the offence. He had for a. long time done no legitimate work. He made a practice of hanging about racecourses, tipping and guessing. The detective mentioned that accused had three previous convictions for theft at Te Kuiti, for obtaining credit by fraud at Onehunga, and for breach of probation. Accused, who cried profusely before entering the dock admitted that what the detective had said was correct. He declared he was not exactly a criminal. He had lost his parents nine years ago, and, having no brothers or sisers, he had been left largely to his own devices. He had held some good jobs as private chauffeur, but when he had fallen out of work he had no home to go to, so he had drifted. He felt quite sure that if his Worship placed him on probation say for three years, and ordered him 25 lashes, it would do him more good, and he would come through and be better for it, than if ho was sent to gaol.

His Worship told accused not to talk nonsense. He could not order him 25 lashes, and if he could, he would not do so. He could not treat accused as a poor homeless child. ’He was a man of 25 and the present was not the first time he had imposed on people. Walter was sentenced to one month’s imprisonment.