SUPREME COURT SITTINGS.

Otago Witness, Issue 3714, 19 May 1925, Page 30

SUPREME COURT SITTINGS.

AUCKLAND, May 12: In the Supreme Court Mr Justice Alpers sentenced Mark Webber, on a charge of assault, to 18 months’ imprisonment. Laurie “Ormond M’Dermott, for theft as a servant, was given two years’ probation, and ordered to refund £56. John Edward Ramsay Chan Shieu Fong, for two breaches of the Bankruptcy Act, was ordered to come up for sentence if called upon, and on a third charge he received three years’ probation. Reginald Weymiss Askew, for receiving stolen property, was sentenced to three months in gaol. Frank Potter, for carnal knowledge of a girl under 15, was sentenced to three years, with hard labour. Robert lleaton Munro and Daniel Thomas Flynn, for breaking and entering and theft, were sentenced, the formed to five years’ and the latter to three years’ imprisonment, with hard labour. In the charges against Munro and Flynn, counsel for accused asked for leniency owing to the assistance given by them in recovering the stolen property. Mr Justice Alpers remarked that £705 worth of stolen goods had never been found. The charge3 involved » series of bold, successful thefts. Munro had entered business establishments in Auckland and Wellington ana stolen goods valued at £1213. To suggest that the ’punishment sho Id bo light in a case liko that was unthinkable. Shopkeepers had a right to expect that, the law would protect their goods. There had been systematic thieving, and the punishment must be severe. In sentencing Frank Potter to three years for carnal knowledge of a girl under 15, his Honor said: “I hope the labour will bo hard enough and tho fare simple enough to cleanse the filth that courses through your veins for honest blood, so that when you emerge from prison you will have learned that to defile a girl of 14 is not a man’s part.”