FIVE YEARS' GAOL.

NZ Truth, Issue 952, 23 February 1924, Page 3

FIVE YEARS' GAOL.

In the Chrlstchurch Supreme Court. Leonard Howard Lepper. who had indecently asaulted a little girl, was represented m court by Mr. A. J. Malley, who said that the prisoner's character previous to this offence, was without a stain. He was a married man, with two children and had always been a good husband and father. It was suggested that the offence, m this instance, had been committed during a fit of mental aberration. . His Honor, Mr. Justice Adams, m sentencing Lepper to five years' Imprisonment, said that these cases m which the innocence of little children was being despoiled, must be prevented at all costs. It was not so much a case of punishing the offender as it was of protecting little children and society generally. ' On a charge of carnal knowledge, which his Honor characterised as being of a serious nature,, William Frederick White (Mr. W. J. Hunter) was sentenced to imprisonment for two years.