SENTENCE SUSPENDED.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20900, 16 June 1931, Page 12

SENTENCE SUSPENDED.

AGE OF BOY PRISONER. JURISDICTION QUESTIONED. The discovery of a misapprehension as to the age of a prisoner who was sentenced in the Supreme Court last week has created a most unusual position and has raised a number of interesting legal questions. The boy, who was charged at Whakatane with breaking and entering, gave his age not only to the polico but also to his counsel, as 18. A birth certificate has now been produced showing that he was born on March 13, 1916, and is therefore only 15 years and threo months old. He was committed by justices at Whakatane for sentence in the Supreme Court m Auckland, and one of the questions that arises is whether justices La\e power to commit a boy under 16, and whether, therefore, he was properly before the Supreme Court. It was stated in Court by his counsel, Mr. Xoble, that the boy lost both his parents at an early age and that he had been Jed into his escapade by a woman considerably older, who had written to the boy a love letter and pleaded with him to get her £3 for a new dress. Mr. Justice Smith sentenced the prisoner to two years' detention in a Borstal Institute.

The whole position is being lookerl into at present by the authorities and in the meantime the warrant for execution of sentence has been suspended, it is most exceptional for juvenile offenders to be dealt with by the Supremo Court, although that Court has power to deal with them in certain circumstances.