PRISONERS SENTENCED

New Zealand Times, Volume LI, Issue 12017, 20 December 1924, Page 5

PRISONERS SENTENCED

AT SUPREME COURT , REFORMATIVE DETENTION DERED IN TWO CASES. HARD LABOUR FOR THEFT CHARGES. i Sentence was passed in the Supreme Court yesterday by the Chief Justice (Sir Robert Stout) on four prisoners who had been convicted of various offences. GUILTY OF THEFT 18 MONTHS HARD LABOUR. William Alexander Duncan, an elerv trical fitter, had pleaded guilty to two charges of theft at Wanganui. His Honour said that he could not extend the benefit of probation to the prisoner. He had not been long in the country, and had already had three convictions for theft, the present making the fourth. Another conviction and he would be declared an habitual criminal. He would be sentenced to 18 months’ hard labour. BREAKING AND ENTERING THE SEATOUN AFFAIR. Sydney Charles Leckie appeared fSsentence on a charge of breaking, entering end theft at Wellington to which he had pleaded guilty. His Honour said that prisoner had a number of previous convictions against him. He had been committing offences of breaking and entering at’Seatoun, and since his arrest these depredations had ceased. The court could not permit this sort of thing to go on, and prisoner would be sentenced to tw* years’ reformative detention. INDECENT ASSAULT OFFENDER MENTALLY DEFICIENT. Two young men, Allan Cameron MoPheo and George Edmund Charlton, elite Jones, appeared for sentence for the offence of indecent assault oil males. Mr A. J. Luke, on behalf of Charlton, said that it was an extremely unfortunate case, as the prisoner Charlton was obviously mentally deficient, and counsel suggested that, in accordance with medical opinion, he should be detained in a mental hospital. The prisoner, who was. evidently labouring under considerable strain in the box, suddenly collapsed on the floor, and hod to be hefped to a seat by the Warder and his fellow prisoner. Mr Lake: Unfortunately the prisoner is subject to these fits, and the pretent strain has brought one op. HIS HONOUR’S DELEMMA. His Honour: But what am I to do with men like this? There are hundreds of these cases of mental deficients and moral degenerates in the country; they have not the intellect of children. Mr Lake suggested that prisoner might, be committed to prison v.itn a recommendation that be be sent on to a mental hospital. Hi« Honour agreed, to this course, sentencing prisoner to threfi -years’ reformative detention, with a recommendation that he be kept under observation by the prison surgeon with a view to determining his mental condition. Mr T. P. Cleary appeared for the prisoner McPhee, saying that his employer spoke, well of him as a workman but. said that he was somewhat below the average mentally. Hss Honour said hie proposed to deal with this man the same as with the previous one. He would be sentenced to three years’ reformative detention, and to be kept under medical obserratdoji 1