SENTENCE REDUCED

Pahiatua Herald, Volume XXXIII, Issue 9922, 2 May 1925, Page 2

SENTENCE REDUCED

A SERIOUS OFFENCE i ' FLOGGING REMITTED. Frederick Edward P. Short land, convicted and sentenced to ten years’ imprisonment and a flogging on a charge of rape, successfully appealed for a reduction of his sentence, the Appeal Court deciding to reduce the term to five years, and to remit the flogging. Rieserved judgment was delivered in the case by Mr Justice Reed who stated: “At the trial the defence was consent which was denied by the young woman concerned, but sworn to by the prisoner, who produced, as some of his statement, a number of letters which, it was contended, showed that intimate sexual relations had existed between them for some months prior to the date of the alleged offence. The jury were no doubt directed, that, even if this were so, it was no answer to the charge if they believed iliat~, on the occasion complained of, the young woman had been forced against her will. In finding the prisoner guilty, therefore, the jury cannot be held to have expressed any opinion as to the proper inference to be drawn from the letters, and the court is not justified in assuming that they found that no sexual intercourse had taken place before the date of the alleged assault. “Those letters, in our opinion, raise a substantial doubt, in spite of the evidence of the police surgeon, as to whether sexual relations had not existed before the date of the assault. The prisoner should be given the benefit of that doubt. From this point of view the sentence is excessive. The sentence of imprisonment will be reduced to five years, and the flogging will be remitted. The Chief Justice does not approve of the reduction of the term of imprisonment, but otherwise concurs in this judgment.”