FLOGGING SENTENCES.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LXI, Issue 206, 1 August 1941, Page 4

FLOGGING SENTENCES.

REMISSION RECOMMENDED. WELLINGTON, July 31

“The Government has decided to recommend a remission of the flogging ordered by Mr Justice Rlair to be carried out on four prisoners as part of the sentence imposed on them lor assaulting warders in their escape irom Auckland Gaol.’’

This announcement was contained in the answer given by the AttorneyGeneral to a question by Air \\. P. Eli deal i (Nat., Remuera) in the House of Representatives to-day. Mr Mason said the recommendation was baseil 'on opposition to flogging as a form of punishment. Debating the answer to the question. Air Endean said the attack was a cowardly, criminal assault, m "hell one warder almost lost his file, and lie contended that the Government answer was far from satisfactory. Punishment by flogging was still on the Statute Book, and if it were in the law then it must be enforced. One of the prisoners was a convicted murderer and was in prison under a particular license which the Government seemed Lo hand out to all criminals when they committed offences against people in this country. The crime committed by the Auckland gaol escapees was the most heinous and the foulest crime ever committed in the history of criminal jurisprudence in New Zealand.

Mr H. E. Combs (Lab., Wellington Suburbs) said the punishment ordered by the Court would not prevent a repetition of such a crime. W hat would prevent a repetition would he an alteration in the conditions under which the men were guarded. AH Harker (Nat., Waipawa) said that the Alinister of Justice in his reply had missed the real point. To suggest that there was anything in the nature of savagery in the sentences passed by the trial Judge and the Court of Appeal .was wrong. It imputed to the .Judges a sentiment entirely absent from their minds. The trial Judge was one of the most humane men in the country, and one who had made a study ol the effects ol puni'tment. Tlih first purpose of punishment was to prevent crime. In imposing sentence of imprisonment for the Alt. Eden crime the Courts took into account the number of strokes to l>e given in the flogging. Jt might be desirable, therefore, that if the flogging was remitted the Court of Appeal should have opportunity to review the gaol sentence imposed.