Borstal Term For Runanga Youth: Motor-cycles Taken

Greymouth Evening Star, 17 August 1948, Page 6

Borstal Term For Runanga Youth: Motor-cycles Taken

An 18-year-old Runanga youth was sent to Borstal for 18 months when he pleaded guilty before Mr A. A. McLachlan, S.M., in the Magistrate’s Court at Greymouth this morning to charges of converting to his own use two motor-cycles on August 7. He is William Hainey Hillhouse, a trucker, of Walker street, Runanga, who was arrested while riding one of the converted motor-cycles at Kaiata early on the morning of Sunday, August 8. Appearing for the accused, Mr W. D. Taylor said that the youth had been remanded yesterday for a medical examination, and this had been carried out. Mr Taylor said that at present, the welfare officer had no one who would take over control of the youth, but he suggested that he could get in touch with Christchurch authorities to get someone to take him. He felt the Borstal was not the best place for the youtfy and that everything possible should be done to get him a suitable job, where he could be subjected to discipline and fairly strong control. Magistrate’s Comment “The court has given very earnest consideration to your case, and feels, like counsel, considerable reluctance to send you to an institution, and certainly, at your age, the court is not disposed to send you to prison,” said the Magistrate. “The reason for my reluctance to deal with you in the ordinary way is the suggestion that your home training was not subject to the proper standard of discipline, and that you yourself assert that you are weak, without many male friends, and fall into crime very easily because you have not sufficient physical or moral courage to extricate yourself. “I hesitate to give you probation and place you on a farm —which would be desirable in most cases — because with your present attitude to crime it would be asking far too much of the particular farmer,” continued Mr McLachlan. “Having regard to the very much improved technique at Invercargill, I hone you will learn by going there that this business of interfering with other people’s property cannot go on indefinitely. The public is entitled to be immune from your tactics or there will corne a lime when you must be put away where you can do no harm.

Matter for the Accused

“Fortunately, the present Borstal institution is directed wisely and well, and, if you select the right type of associate and train yourself, you will have an excellent chance,’’ said Mr McLagan, adding that he did not entirely agree with counsel or Dr H. S. Ray* that a Borstal term would not do the accused a great deal of good. “If you strive to leave behind you ypur disposition to crime and learn a trade you will come out a good citizen, but if you take the easy way and choose your friends from the most vicious, then you will come out worse than you went in,” he added. The accused was . convicted and sentenced to be detained, at a Borstal institution for a period not exceeding 18 months on each charge, the terms lo be concurrent. Mr McLachlan added that the time of the accused s departure from the institution depended on how he conducted himself there.