The Gisborne Times PUBLISHED DAILY. TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 8, 1925. WAS MOUAT’S SENTENCE TOO LENIENT?

Gisborne Times, Volume LXIII, Issue 10096, 8 September 1925, Page 4

The Gisborne Times PUBLISHED DAILY. TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 8, 1925. WAS MOUAT’S SENTENCE TOO LENIENT?

The verdict of the jury in the St. Martin’s slaying ease and the sentence imposed on Mount continue to provide subject matter for a. great deal of discussion in the press throughout the Dominion. There would, indeed, appear to be a fairly general consensus of opinion that Mount was extremely lucky that he was not lound guilty of murder. As the Judge himself said, the jury truly took a. very merciful view of Mouat’s terrible part in the ghastly tragedy. Itjs clear that the jury had no doubt at all on the point that Mrs Mouat met her death at the, hands of her husband and that the fragments of bones lound were part of her remains. In tho circumstances, the only possible ground for the decision of the jury to bring in a verdict of manslaughter must have been that it was felt that the crime was due to a sudden impulse. Colour is at all events lent to that theory by the fact that, earlier in the evening in question, Moil at and his wife were on such good terms that they went out to a neighbour's to a party. But, as it so happens, Mouat disposed of his wife’s body arid that fact might not have appealed to another jury as being evidence that death was unintentional. What followed upon the crime assuredly, serves to make it one of the most gniesome ever perpetrated in this Dominion. The Judge was unquestionably right when he told the jury that Mouat, if he were guilty of the death of his wife, had subsequently displayed wonderful control over himself, seeing that none of the witnesses had noticed - anything peculiar in his manner or appearance after her disappearance. If Mouat, as is widely held, were fortunate in escaping the scaffold, his luck must be held to have stuck to him when he came to he sentenced. Mouat was ordered to be imprisoned only for seventeen years, which means that, if his behaviour should prove good, he may again have his liberty long before that period has elapsed! Nobody will be pleased to think that such an inhuman monster, who was able to dispose of a human body m such a cool calculating manner as almost to baffle detection, may again secure his freedom when he may still be in the prime of life. Mouat, it is true, was not convicted also of illegally disposing of his wife’s body, but we venture to say that the Judge should have used the fact of what the unrepentant Mouat did after he had slain his wife to support the infliction of tho heaviest possible term of imprisonment allowed under the law in respect of the crime of manslaughter. Only one more matter requires to l>e discussed, and that is : that the careful way in which the Crown reconstructed the awful crime reflects very great credit on all who were responsible for the investigations.