SALUTARY SENTENCE.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 7 October 1924, Page 5

SALUTARY SENTENCE.

ASSAULT ON GIRL. (by TELEGRAPH —PHKBB ASSOCIATION.) GISBORNE, Oct. 6. “My duty is to protect children, especially little girls, from molestation on the street from things which are filthy and corrupt both in mind and body. I cannot take the fact that you had drink into consideration. Children must be protected.” Thus stated the magistrate (Mr Levvy) in sentencing a middle-aged man named John Bailey, who was charged with assault on .a little girl and with the use of obscene language.

The girl, who is aged nine years, said she was waiting outside a bookseller’s shop on Saturday night while her father went in a tobacconist’s for a shave. The man came up and asked what stories she Kked, and she said Bible stories. He said h© would buy her a book of Bible stories and give her five shillings if she would come round the corner with him, and he made an improper suggestion. She would not go, and he put his arms round her neck as if to try and persuade her.

The police said accused was not drunk. He had said he had a slight recollection of speaking to a girl. ° Accused said to the magistrate: “It is a shocking affair, but nothing like that entered my'head. I had a lot of the girl, or she couldn’t have dreamed it.”

Accused was convicted and sentenced to six months’ hard labour, to be followed by 18 months’ reformative detention.