LAW AND ORDER

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXVI, 19 July 1932, Page 6

LAW AND ORDER

MUST BE UPHELD

COMMENTS BY JUDGE Some trenchant remarks on llio gravity of offences against law and order committed in troublous times were made by Mr Justice Blair in the Supreme Court at Wellington yesterday, after having delivered reserved judgment in the case of Mervyn George Berry, who appealed against the sentence of twelve months’ imprisonment imposed upon him in the Magistrate’s Court. The charge against Berry was that he was found armed with-an offensive weapon with felonious intent. His Honour affirmed the conviction, and said that, although the accused wasjof good character, lie was unable to interfere with lbe sentence.

His Honour said that when it came to a question of sentencing a person, people had no conception of the difficulty anyone who had that particular duty to perform, felt. Especially was that the case where the offender was a young man of good character. ... So far as the imposition of sentences was concerned, he had not become used to it, and never expected to. Reference had been made to the fact that- Berry was of good character. That was an important element when considering the question of the imposition of punishment, but in another sense, curiously enough, that fact, one might say, and he was not saying it in any sinister sense, was an aggravated feature of Berry’s case, because the accused had deliberately allied himself with those who preached and practised the doctrine of mutiny agaist established order and good government.

There was no distinction, continued his Honour, between interfering with a police officer, a Judge, or any other person whose duty it was to maintain order and carry out the law of the land without fear or favour as long as it was the law of the land. Berry, notwithstanding the fact that he was of good character, had joined, one might say, “the rabble,” and had blindly followed and was prepared to become one of those who were there to destroy the very fabric of the maintenance of peace and order in the country. In that sense Berry’s good character, instead of proving a help to him, rather indicated that perhaps lie was one of them. It might he hard in his case, but still the. position was that he was one who certainly should have known better. Berry had deliberately armed himself with the intention. in his heart of using violence for the purpose of resisting constituted authority. The business of the country could not be carried on if people were allowed to judge their own cases in their own particular way. smash and destroy things, and do sa they (liked for any reason or no reason. "I do desire to impress upon everybody the very great importance and the real gravity of crimes of this nature at this particular time, touching as they do the very vitals of the administration of justice.”

.. His Honour said he had heard it stated that severe pnnislnnent should not be meted out in such cases. People who said tha« did not appreciate the serious position that would eventuate i: such offences were ■ allowed to go unchecked. In Berry’s case it appeared to him that what he was asked to do was to make a distinction between him and others. He regretted very much that although the effect on the accused might be very hard, it was also a hit. hard on him (the Judge). 'He' £h"ad been very much tempted to lake tile course suggested' by counsel, but were he to do so he would ho failing in his duty and would be undermining the administration of justice, and advertising to the public view generally the idea that there was no support by the Judiciary for the serious view taken of such offences.