TAXI DRIVER SENTENCED

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXXIII, 24 October 1940, Page 3

TAXI DRIVER SENTENCED

i NINE MONTHS’ IMPRISONMENT SUBVERSIVE PAMPHLETS IN POSSESSION : Nine months’ imprisonment with • hard labour was the punishment imposed by Mr Justice Ostler on William McCready, taxi driver, aged 24, when he appeared in the Supreme Court, Wellington, yesterday for sentence on the charge of possessing pamphlets (“The People’s Voice”) with a view to facilitating the publication of a subversive statement. His Honour said that, but for the jury’s recommendation to mercy, he would have made the sentence to 12 months. Prisoner’s counsel, Mr A. R. Perry, said the report of the probation officer was entirely complimentary to McCready, except in regard to the one offence, and he submitted that under the supervision of the probation officer McCready would not associate with the people who would enable him to indulge in the conduct that had brought him to the Court. The probation officer’s report, combined with the jury’s recommendation, might enable probation to be ,allowed. “At a time such as this,” said his Honour to prisoner, “when the British Empire, of which this country forms a part., is engaged lone-handed in a desperate struggle for its very existence, when we have a potential enemy close to our doors, who at any moment may join in the attack on Britain and this country and bring the war with all its horrors to our shores, I regard such offences as that of which you have been found guilty as far more serious than a common theft or burglary or suchlike crimes, because they are a real danger to the continued existence of the State itself, and affect the interest and well-being of every member of the community. One has only to contemplate what has happened in France to realise that. Moreover this is by no means the first case under the Public Safety Regulations. “You have admitted to the police that you knew the risk you were running. You had received fair warning, and with your eyes open you deliberately chose to flout the law. That being so, but for the recommendation of the jury I should have deemed it my duty to impose a sentence of 12 months. But the jury has made a recommendation to mercy—for what reason I do not know. As far as I can as a guardian of the public interest I shall give effect to that recommendation. The sentence of the Court is that you be imprisoned with hard labour for the term of nine months.”