YOUTHFUL CRIMINALS

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LV, Issue 17182, 12 February 1930, Page 13

YOUTHFUL CRIMINALS

SENTENCE POSTPONED COUNSEL ADDRESSES COURT (Per Press Association.) CHRISTCHUBCH, this day. In expectation of Charles Robert Gray and James Wilfred Gray being sentenced the Supreme Court was crowded. Those who attended heard a long address by the young men's counsel, but Mr. Justice Adams said he wished to consider carefully all that Mr. Burns hod said, and he would not pass sentence until Friday. Mr. Burns gave, most of his time and attention to Charles Robert Gray, the young brother who shot Mr. E. H. Hammond, and whom Mr. Burns described as the ringleader :in "this extraordinary series of crimes." Counsel added that the judge would appreciate that it was very difficult for counsel to say anything whatever in mitigation in face of the largo number of crimes the brothers had committed, but it was very important that everything connected with the young men and their crimes should be placed before the court. The family wa,g iii poor circumstances, as the father could not get regular employment. Counsel appealed for leniency on the grounds of the youth of the prisoners, and urged that both be declared habitual criminals, as they then would be under the control of the Prisons Board.