BABY IN GAOL.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 20105, 16 November 1928, Page 15

BABY IN GAOL.

removal from the mother. CURIOUS CASE IN SYDNEY. . [FROM OUR. OWN •CORRESPONDENT.] SYDNEY, Nov. 8. There is a notorious woman housebreaker known to the. local police who is serving a sentence of three years' imprisonment, and her case becomes rather complicated from the fact (hat she is the mother of a youhg baby, which has gone to gaol with her. Naturally this fact has provided food for much outcry and agitation 011 tho part of certain individuals, with the result that the authorities have been forced to make nn immediate decision as to what is to bo done with the child. Actually there is no regulation to determine how long a baby may remain in gaol with a mother who has been sentenced to a long term of imprisonment. Such cases are not very common, and tho prison authorities take the view that most peoplo would take, that it is better for an infant to be separated from its mother than to be brought up in a gaol atmosphere. So, in the case under review, tho baby is being placed in an institution. On previous occasions the same woman has taken her children to gaol with her, while two of her babies were actually born in Long Bay prison. In tho latter cases no attempt was made to part the infants from their mother, because they were still tiny mites by tho tinio she had completed her sentence.