IN TRANSIT CAMP

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 22624, 29 April 1948, Page 6

IN TRANSIT CAMP

DESERTER FOUND TWO YEARS IN GAOL COURT-MARTIAL PENALTY (P.A.) WELLINGTON, April 28. A sentence of two years’ imprisonment with hard labour was passed on Sapper Percy Sievers on a charge of desertion by a central military court martial today. The sentence, which can be reduced by the confirming officer. Colonel A. \V. Andrews, is subject to his confirmation. Sievers pleaded guilty to absenting himself from Trentham military camp without leave on April 7, 1945, until he was arrested at Masterton on April 13, 1948. To a second charge of losing his regimental equipment and sundry clothing as from April 28. 1945. he pleaded not guilty and entered a pica in bar under Section 161 of the Army Act. The judge advocate. Major A. B. Sievwright. said that he believed the court must accept that plea under the Act. “No man can be charged except with mutiny, fraudulent enlistment or desertion after the lapse of three years. Those three years elapsed at midnight last night.” he said. The court accepted the plea. The prosecuting officer stated _ that the accused was arrested on April 13, 1948, while living in a caravan in a Masterton transit camp. The defending officer said Sievers was of Danish extraction and therefore bis outlook to war would bo different from that of the ordinary New Zealander. He said Sievers had already served six months for desertion from the 11th Reinforcements while in camp at Trentham.