SOLDIER’S TRIAL

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20619, 21 November 1941, Page 5

SOLDIER’S TRIAL

DESERTION CHARGES CONSCIENCE PLEA OBJECTION TO HEARING (Per Press Association.) WELLINGTON, this day. A soldier previously on home defence, who volunteered under an assumed name to get into the 2nd N.Z.E.F., described himself as a conscientious objector when he was charged on two separate counts of desertion before a court-martial av Trentham yesterday. He was Private Winston Andrew Boag. The prosecutor stated that the accused went on coast defence service the day the war began. Unsuccessful in attempts to enlist for overseas, he joined up under an assumed name. He deserted from Trentham camp and was arrested at Auckland in civilian clothes after 223 days’ absence. While in custody he escaped from the guard house at Trentham and was absent for one year and nine days before he surrendered himself in civilian clothes at Hamilton.

The Court comprised Major A. E. Gorton, M.M., president, Captain W. Huse and Captain P. L. Bennett, M.C., members. Major A. B. Sievwright, E.D , N.Z. Army Legal Department, was judge-advocate. Captain J. W. Hollows was prosecutor. Mr. F. W. Ongley defended the accused.

The accused was first charged with desertion in absenting himself without leave from Trentham camp from April 7, 1940 till he was apprehended in civilian clothes by the civil authorities at Auckland on October 20, 1940. Refusal to Plead Major Gorton to the accused: Do you object to me as president. The accused: Yes. I am satisfied you can’t give me an unbiassed judgment. Do you object to me as president or as an individual? —To you as president. You as a subsidiary authority, have not the God-given right to judge me. Can you satisfy .ne you have? Do you object to any members of the Court?—Yes, to both' for the same reason.

Major Sievwright: You object to be tried by any military tribunal?— I do.

Then your objection is not to the president or the members personally?—l object to being judged by a military court which I consider is a subsidiary authority for the State. I do not recognise the State as having the right to judge my conscience.

The court disallowed the objection. Objection to President.

Asked to plead, the accused replied: You understand you are carrying on despite my protest. I’ve given you due warning. I refuse to plea'd. In accordance with military law, this was treated as a plea of not guilty. Mr. Ongley said the accused had been reading and studying matter that the average person neither read nor studied and, from this, got fixed and settled .views that he now advanced. Some years ago he spent a period at his home where for days he would not be seen. He was obviously studying and devoting attention to the type of matter previously referred to. It could be seen that the accused’s troubled state of mind was the result of unguided, perhaps misguided, studies. The court has delivered its recommendations on both charges to the convening officer, Adjutant-General Colonel A. E. Conway. The sentence will be announced after promulgation.