COURT OF APPEAL

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIX, Issue 192, 15 July 1939, Page 3

COURT OF APPEAL

JUDGMENTS DELIVERED. For Press Association. WFI.I.INGTON, July 14. Judgment, was delivered to-day l>y tile C'ourl of Appeal in the ease brought by Leslie JOric Towns against a sen tence of seven years’ imprisonment and a Dogging imposed by the Supreme Court in Cnristchurch on May 12 last upon his conviction on a serious charge. Sir Michaei Myers to-day said the ease was a shocking one and the circumstances -were such as to show prisoner was a menace to the safety oi children and to require that he he placed for a lengthy period out of the way of doing further harm. The quos tion of a. flogging, however, required more serious consideration. A report had been obtained from the medical superintendent of Ihe mental hospital at Christchurch which indicated that, while Towns could not lie regarded as insane, thcic was nevertheless a con dition of mental impairment dis closed which rendered it- undesirable that a flogging should he carried out in case it should result in a complete breakdown of his mental and moral fibre. For this reason the sentence would be altered by cancelling the flogging.

Tlie Court of Appeal, in its judgment, in a case slated by Mr Justice Flair under section 442 of the Crimes .Act arising out of the (rial in Dunedin in Mnv of William Alexander Tail quashed file convictions under tiethird and ioin-tli counts, namely. n( failing to render all praH Pablo assist mice to injured persons and failing to ascertain that lie had injured Vcr Thomson in a motor accident. Regard ing the former of these counts. tlm Court said that seeing Miss Thomson had boon killed outright, it seemed immaterial whether prisoner knew she was injured, and in view of the fact that she wa« dead no practicable assistance could he rendered. Concerning the latter count, the Court was o r opinion that the jurv had not been adequately directed. In view of the fact that the trial Judge did not take these two counts into consideration when sentencing prisoner, the existing sentence stands.