DEPRAVED GIRLS

Greymouth Evening Star, 27 November 1929, Page 5

DEPRAVED GIRLS

CHIEF JUSTICE’S COMMENT

“APPALLING AND AMAZING” (Per Press Association.) WELLINGTON, November 27. “Such girls as these, if left at large, are and will be, not only a danger to themselves, but a menace to the youths of the community, and they are simply inviting the commission of crime of the description which the prisoner has committed,” said Chief Justice Myers, when James Webster Bittie, 23, appeared for sentence on two charges of. indecent assault on a female child, and two charges of obscene exposure. The offences were committed at Petone.

After remarking on the painfulness of the case to Bittie liimself, who hitherto had borne an excellent character, his Honor went on: The importance of the matter from the public viewpoint, however, is that the papers before me disclose depths of depravity on the part of young girls, 11 and 12 years of age, which are as appalling as they are amazing. One might hope that such cases are as rare as they are appalling, but unfortunately those of us who have to do with criminals know to the contrary.”

Continuing his Honor said that he was not speaking of the last few months, during which he had been in his present position, but from his experience of association with the criminal law in the past few years. This was the fourth case within a space of less than a month, in which there had been evidence before the Court, of depravity of the most serious kind on the part of young girls, and he would not have made special mention now, but for the ages of the two girls. The point he wanted to come to was that such girls as these, if left at large, were and would be not only a danger to themselves, but to the community His regref was there was no power in that Court, on the disclosure of such cases, to commit girls to an institution for a term of years for correction and discipline. He made the suggestion that the Court should be invested with such power, and commended the suggestion to the consideration of the proper authorities. Bittie got 12 months’ reformative treatment. OTHER SENTENCES. WELLINGTON, November 27. At the Supreme Court, the Chief Justice sentenced James Taylor Watt, for obscene exposure, to two years’ reformative detention. The circumstances disclosed in the depositions were such as to exclude any question of probation. Reginald Eugene Seager was ordered six months’ hard labour for carnal knowledge.