PRISONER’S OUTBURST.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIX, Issue 67, 16 February 1939, Page 9

PRISONER’S OUTBURST.

INCIDENT IN COURT. Per Press Association. AUCKLAND, Feb. 15. In a dramatic and bitter speech from the dock in the Supreme Court, to-day, George Henderson, aged 30, a labourer, told bow an experience had made him believe that conviction on a criminal charge placed a stigma on a man’s life. Henderson had been found guilty by a jury of three charges of vagrancy, and Mr Justice Fair sentenced him to twelve months’ imprisonment. “I wish to say I have come to the conclusion that once a man has had the misfortune to fall against the law and then falls again it is absolutely useless for him to expect any mercy, justice, and respect,” said Henderson before sentence was passed. “Although he has already paid his previous debt to society, the machinery of the law will not be satisfied to punish a victim of circumstances only for the offence for which he has been convicted. He is forever, in the eyes of his fellow men, an outcast, and his word can never-be taken as truth.” Henderson added that he had been found guilty on this occasion because he had been hampered by circumstances from proving his innocence. The Judge commented on Henderson’s long list of previous convictions. NEW PLYMOUTH INCIDENT. Per Press Association. NEW PLYMOUTH, Feb. 15. “The placement officer at Auckland got me a job, but I was drummed out of it because I was an habitual criminal and so had to steal to live.” This was the protest of Archibald Andrew Charles Scott in the Police Court, this morning, when he was committed for sentence on charges of breaking and entering and theft at Tokirima and was sentenced to a month on another charge. He was also convicted without penalty on other charges of theft, principally of food ar.d clothing. According to the police, prisoner was discharged from the Mt. Eden Gaol on December 19, where he served a long sentence after being declared an habitual criminal. He worked his way to Taranaki, where he committed a series of offences, stealing food, clothing, and sundry small articles. “I am an honest man, but when I was declared an habitual criminal for some petty offences, that stopped me getting a job,” said prisoner. “I have had to thieve to live. Until they scrap the Act about habitual criminals I will be better in Mt. Eden.”