PRISONERS SENTENCED

New Zealand Herald, Volume LV, Issue 16896, 8 July 1918, Page 6

PRISONERS SENTENCED

ASSAULT BY A MAORI.

FIVE YEARS' IMPRISONMENT. Sentence was passed by Mr. Justice Cooper on several prisoners at the Supreme Court on Saturday morning. A flontence of five years' hard labour, for indecently assaulting a Maori girl under six years of ago, was imposed upon Petuere Awatere Tunua, of Waipiro Bay. The police report stated that the prisoner, who was 33 years of age, was regarded by tho district natives as rather mentally weak.

His Honor said if the prisoner's mental condition were unsound it would bo inquired into. A sontenco of not more than three years' reformative treatment was passed upon a Maori boy of iu, named Taiahiahi Kohu, who pleaded guilty to having, m May last, broken and outcrod a dwelling on two occasions and having stolen £12 10s and a blank cheque which he afterwards forged and uttered. His Honor said it would bo open to tho boy's parents to apply for his transfer to an industrial school, to which he could not be admitted direct on account of his ago. Two years' roformativo treatment was ordored in the case, of Robert Charles Dixon, who pleaded guilty to a charge of obtaining £45 under false pretences. Accused, who had previously pleaded guilty to six charges of a similar character and wins upon probation, aßked for leniency on the ground that ho had, in a moment of desperation, caused through failure to obtain work, obtained tho money to pay his probation orders. It was stated, however, that ho had used the money for other purposes. ______