PENAL SERVITUDE

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18193, 14 September 1933, Page 11

PENAL SERVITUDE

THREE SAILORS SENTENCED OF PENCE AGAINST NATIVE t>l \ A. Sept. b. The, trial of three sailors from HALS. Laburnum ended this altemoun. Tluw were charged with indecent- behavior with a native male at Hetio. Tarawa, in the Gilbert, giuiip, on July 23. Mr. R-. Crumpton, K.C.. C.8.E.. deiended the men, all of whom were iuinid guilty. Jn sentencing the first, Eric Hocks, a stoker, His Honor the Chief Justice said lie had made iiis offence worse by going into the box and committing perjury. “L totallv disbelieve your story, sail! jI is Honor. "Herhaps you don’t know it, but here .1 have the power to have you flogged, and 1 seriously thought m it. If it- had been a. girl you bad interfered with I would have done so. It- is all the worse coming from a man like you. His Majesty's ships are, sent to the Islands to help to civilise the people, bid - fort unalely rarely —we cmne across men like you. You are liable to penal servitude for life for I ins offence, imi have a vote good service record, though it is only a short one, and you are only a young man.” He thereupon sentenced Hecks to three year's penal servitude, and his mates, William Cheyne. a cook, and Ivor Samson, a seaman gunner, eaeli to Id mouths’ penal servitude. Thus ended a trial u liicu lias caused a, very painful feeling among Euiupeans.