DRAMATIC PLEA TO JUDGE

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXX, Issue 21562, 5 August 1933, Page 3 (Supplement)

DRAMATIC PLEA TO JUDGE

LONG RECORD OF CRIME " I NEVER HAD A FRIEND " With tears in his eyes and hands ouststreched toward the judge, a greybearded man with a long record of crime poured forth his woes at hxeter Assizes recently. The. man was Arthur Mead, aged 01, labourer, who pleaded guilty to two oharges of house-breaking at Axminster. He had 45 previous convictions recorded against him. " I have travelled from one casual ward to another," Mead said to Mr. Justice Goddard. " The first thing the police do when I get into trouble is to dig up my past history, things done years ago for which 1 have suffered over and over again. I have had over 40 convictions, and have never once been defended by counsel or had anyone to give evidence on my behalf. 1 have always been friendless and have gone to prison.

" My first conviction was at the age of 11, when 1 ran away from a workhouse and was charged with absconding and stealing the clothes 1 was wearing. I was picking oakum in Pentonville prison at 11 years of age and they sent me back to the reformatory. But what did 1 want reforming for at that age? There 1 was a slave until 1 was 1(5, when 1 was discharged with half a crown in my pocket and given a Bible and prayer booic. 1 was sent to London with no home and nowhere to go.

" The consequence is that 1 have been in trouble time aftcJr time, and 1 three years' penal servitude for stealing a shirt of the value of 3s when 1 was unemployed. Afterward 1 went to America and remained until war broke out, and 1 have been in trouble ever since.

" 1 wish 1 liad never come back. There is nothing for me now. 1 am down at heel and have been kicked down to that state. Yet the world was not made for , a few, but for everybody." The juuge remarked that most of Mead's offences were small, but his record was very bad. He passed a sentence of 15 months' imprisonment with hard labour.