44 YEARS IN PRISON

New Zealand Herald, Volume LI, Issue 15730, 3 October 1914, Page 2 (Supplement)

44 YEARS IN PRISON

FREEDOM NOT WANTED

FoRTY-rorn years spent in prison. That is the saJ record of Benjamin Phillips, who ence core stood in the dock at the London Sessions last month. Philips, a white-haired man of 85, pleaded guilty to having maliciously damaged a plateglass wndow of the value of £15, the property of , Alfred Forrester and another, of Newington Causeway, S.E. Warder Walton produced the crim' ■vl recoil) of Phillips,, who had been a/- ■'

and Again convicted of wanton dam-'.:, theft, shopbreaking, burglary, of beinj a rogue and vagabond, also twice for attempting suicide. Altogether, he had been 44 years n gaol, his sentences including three periods of seven years' penal servitude, and three of three'years. Sergeant Morris stated that the man had boken the same window on five occasion. The last timo lie walked into the police station and surrendered, saying, "I have got so accustomed to prison that I do not care about freedom."

" Ho tells me in a statement that he has tried the workhouse, but does not like it," said Mr. Wallace. "He is not very fond of imprisonment, he says, but ho likes penal servitude, as it is more com-fort-able, and he asks me to give him that.

" I could not think of sending him back to penal servitude for one moment. I will formally pass sentence of nine months' imprisonment, which time be will be detained in the infirmary."