INDECENT ASSAULT

Grey River Argus, 19 March 1941, Page 2

INDECENT ASSAULT

Sentence Reduced [Per Press Association] WELLINGTON, March 18. The Court of Appeal, sitting at Wellington this afternoon, varied a sentence of two years’ imprisonment with hard labour to one of two years’ reformative detention. The original sentence was one imposed by the Chief Justice at Napier on November 1940, on James Charles Robert Ewan, for indecent assault on a female. Delivering judgment, Mr Justice Ostler said that, in the cases of offences against young females, where force was used, it was necessary that the punishment should be real and substantial, and, in such cases, the same weight was not given to previous good character as in other cases. In Ewan’s case, however, there was evidence that the act was an isolated one; that the prisoner was suffering from the effects of alcohol; and that subsequently he wa's seriously disturbed and repentent for his offence. These circumstances, in the opinion of the Court, justified varying the punishment from imprisonment with hard labour to reformative detention. Appeal Dismissed HABITUAL CRIMINAL ORDER WELLINGTON, March 18. An application by Edward Hemsley Dawson, for cancellation of an order declaring him an habitual criminal, made at Christchurch on February 10, on a charge of breaking and entering, was dismissed by the Court of Appeal to-day.