Maori Overdoes it Laying on the Leather

Grey River Argus, 17 December 1948, Page 7

Maori Overdoes it Laying on the Leather

WHANGAREI, December 16. Niko Waiomio, farmer, of Pakapu, was charged with beating a nephew, aged 12. Constable Muir, at the Kawa-Kawa Court, described his reactions on inspecting the back of the nephew in saying: “Never in my life have I seen anything like it. The little fellow could barely walk”. He said Waiomio beat his nephew with a razor strop after the lad had spent some hours searching for cows. Two days later the milking shed switch failed and, angered by the fact that, he had slipped on his injured weak leg as he had come into the shed, he again thrashed the boy, first with a walking stick and then with a thin stick, which broke, and finally with his belt. Waiomio told the Magistrate he had lost his temper, and when he came to his senses he was sorry. He had lost an arm and got shrapnel wounds in the forehead and chest and a leg during the way. The Magistrate admitted the ac, cused to 12 months’ probation, saying that if he had been fit and well he would have been sent to gaol. PRISON SENTENCE DOUBLED ON MAORI AUCKLAND, December 16. A Maori labourer, Adam Whakau. aged 18, who had pleaded guilty in the Police Court to joining in the robbery of an elderly Chinaman in Greys Avenue, Auckland, of money and three bank drafts totalling £730 after the accused had escaped from gaol, was brought before Mr Justice Stanton, in the Supreme Court today. The Judge added three years’ hard labour to the sentence of three years which Whakaue was serving. The accused was to-day charged with escaping from custody, theft from a dwellinghouse, theft, breaking and entering, and theft and robbery with violence. George Jefferies, aged 21, of Tauranga, for stealing a horse, was sentenced in the Supreme Court to-day by Mr Justice Stanton, to twelve months’ hard labour.