AUSTRALIAN CRIMES

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXI, Issue 21982, 13 December 1934, Page 10

AUSTRALIAN CRIMES

FAILURE OF LENIENCY -. CASES IN NEW SOUTH WALES [from our own correspondent] SYDNEY, Dec. 6 The danger associated with any interference with the laws and regulations intended to protect society from the criminal and- the insane has been exemplified in -New South Wales recently by two terrible crimes in which the Victims have been children. Last Friday, on a lonely farm some distance from Leeton, in the south-west corner .of the State, a man took his small daughter into the yard and battered her head against .a tree stump until "the child was dead. He then committed suicide and his wife found him hanging from a tree. Not long before the tragedy occurred the father and child were 6een playing together, and it seemed 'that there could be no motive for the niurder. When the inquest was held this week lit was revealed that two years ago the father was committeed to a mental hospital, but at the repeated requests of his father he was released on probation. He had since been suffering from melancholia, and at times had shown that he might be dangerous. However, his condition was not reported to the authorities, atid eventually he was g.'ven his discharge. The coroner said he was very sorry to think that a man of this character should be released, even in the care of his parent. Bad as the tragedy was, it certainly could have been worse, and it was fortunate that others did not meet the same fate as the child. The second case concerns a man who was convicted in Western Australia on a charge of murder and sent to gaol for life. Not long ago a well-known social organisation became interested in the case and uiade representations to the authorities' to release the man. The Western Australian Government finally agreed to let the man go free, and he immediately left that State and camp to New South Wales. He had not been here long when he was convicted of a serious assault on a small girl. He has since been sen!, to prison for five years. The police stated that he was of a particularly dangnrous type and that ho should never have been released from prison.