YOUTH'S CRIME

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22860, 15 October 1937, Page 16

YOUTH'S CRIME

FIVE YEABS' PROBATION FORCED MARRIAGE QUESTION WARNING BY JUDGE A warning to parents against bringing pressure to induce an unwilling man to marry was given by Mr. Justice Callan, when dealing with a prisoner in the Supreme Court yesterday. The prisoner was Albert Walter Dixon, aged 20 (Mr. Vialoux), who bad been committed for sentence from Te Kuiti on a charge of unlawfully carnally knowing a girl 15 years of age. Mr. Vialoux said prisoner had a good reputation as a worker. He could have successfully pleaded that he believed the girl to be over age but he did not wish to embarrass her with Court proceedings. The two young people had fallen' violently in love, and Dixon was anxious to marry the girl as soon as that was possible. Counsel asked for probation and for suppression of the accused's name.

"It must be very rare," said His Honor, "that it can be proper to admit to probation a young man guilty of the crime to which this young man has pleaded guilty, but I am prepared to do it in this case." He agreed that in the circumstances Dixon might have been acquitted by a jury, and it would seem a little hard to send him to gaol, although normally gaol was the proper place for such offenders. "Whether a marriage should later take place is a matter for her parents," continued His Honor. "The only remark I would make is that, from some experience of. these matters, I am of opinion that it is a very great mistake and a cause of great tragedy and suffering in any way to press a man who is at all unwilling into a marriage of this sort. "Such a man entering upon a marriage under those auspices very seldom makes a satisfactory husband. By all means make him pay and maintain the child, but it is a very great mistake to press him to marry unless he really wishes it and seems to have a proper disposition for a husband." His Honor admitted prisoner to probation for five years, the longest term the law allows, and ordered him to pay within one month £3 4s 3d costs of the prosecution and £lO to the probation officer for the girl's expenses. He would also be required to maintain the child. His Honor declined to suppress the name.