CHARGE OF ABDUCTION.

Otago Witness, Issue 4042, 1 September 1931, Page 68

CHARGE OF ABDUCTION.

YOUNG MAN’S SERIOUS OFFENCE. BALCLUTHA, August 26. At the Police Court to-day, before Mr H. J. Dixon, S.M., a young man named Basil George Knox, of Balclutha, appeared to answer a charge of abducting a girl under the age of 18. with intent to commit a serious offence. The accused pleaded guilty. Sergeant Armstrong, in outlining the case, said the facts were that on Saturday night last a girl, whose age was 16 years last January, attended a dance in St. Mark’s Hall, Balclutha, in the care of her brother. About 10 o’clock the accused, with whom the girl had been dancing, invited her out to a motor car to get a lemon squash. The girl had four of these drinks, which the accused had later admitted contained wine. The accused had stated to the police that he had three of these drinks himself in addition to a nip of whisky previously. The couple went on drinking until 11 30, when the accused obtained a motor car and they went for a drive. They drove to Henley, where the accused obtained a room at the hotel under the name of Mr and Mrs Knox. They posed as a married couple, and were given the room, despite the fact that the girl was still in her ball dress. The accused kept the girl there all day Sunday, and the girl arrived home under cover of darkness on Sunday night, still suffering from the effects of liquor. The accused would be 20 years old next month. When he took the girl away from the dance he went home, and his people 'saw the girl. Other members of the family who visited the room at the hotel at Henley also saw the girl but took no notice.

The accused: If I had not been under the influence of drink I would not have done it. She was quite agreeable though. His Worship: It was not her consent you had to get, but you are charged with taking her away without the consent of her parents. The accused elected to be dealt with summarily. The magistrate, quoting from the probation officer’s report, said it seemed that the accused when a boy had been put in an industrial school for six months at f he request of his father, and since then the police report as to his reputation and character was a bad one. It might be the fault of the conditions in which he had been allowed to grow up, but it was plain that unless this young man were checked he would “go down the track.” Discipline and instruction would be most effective in making him a respectable and decent member of society, which in his present environment he could not hope to become. The accused would be convicted and ordered to be detained in the Borstal Institute at Invercargill for a period of 18 months.