SENT TO PRISON

Hawera Star, Volume L, 10 January 1931, Page 5

SENT TO PRISON

YOUTHFUL AUST RALI AN

ASSAULT ON YOUNG GIRL

HASTINGS, Jan. 9.

Eleven months of roaming this country after having come here as a stowaway from Australia was brought to an end here to-day, when a 19-year-old Australian named Harry Robinson was sentenced to two terms of imprisonment with hard labour totalling three months; of that sentence two months was allotted as punishment for a seemingly violent assault on a little girl nine years old whom accused had thrown into some long grass and whose mouth he had injured in attempting to stifle her cries for help. Accused pleaded guilty to a charge of theft of goods valued at 12s Cd, but not guilty to the charge of assaulting the girl. He had nothing to say in reference to either charge. On a further charge of breaking, entering and theft from a dwellinghouse, goods valued at £3 Os 3d being involved, accused was committed for sentence. 'He liad ransacked a house during the owner’s absence from town,, and was caught in an outhouse in possession of various articles, including a woman’s gold watch, chocolates, and garters; he had another watch in his hat, and simulated drunkenness when arrested. —“ Dominion ’ ’ Service.