“NOT THE FIRST TIME”

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 19882, 8 March 1939, Page 4

“NOT THE FIRST TIME”

COAST MAORI’S CRIME

SUPREME COURT SENTENCE

HARD LABOUR FOR YEAR

Committed for sentence yesterday before justices of the peace in Ruatoria, a 19-year-old Maori, Tehuatahi Taukamo, ’alias Darkie Taukamo, Ruatoria, appeared this morning before Mr. Justice Northcroft in the Supreme Court and was sentenced to one year’s imprisonment with' hard labour on a charge of attempted rape on Saturday last.

In passing sentence, His Honour said that he had read the depositions of the lower court hearing and the probation officer’s report, and it appeared that it- was not the first time that the prisoner had interfered with this 12-year-old girl. He knew that she was only a Child and was unwilling to be a party to what he wanted to do. He considered it unnecessary to tell the prisoner that his crime was very wrong in the eyes of Europeans and Maoris alike. In the Ruatoria Police Court yesterday the accused appeared! before Messrs. W. H. O. Johnston and I. C. S. Dailgairris, J.P.s, and, pleading guilty, was committed for sentence. Dragged Into the Scrub ' !

The igfrl in the case said she was born in Ruatoria on August 21, 1926, and was still at school. On March 4 she went .to the pictures at Ruatoria and saw the accused in the township after the session came out. He asked the witness where she was going and she 'told him. The witness 'started off along the Te Puia main highway and near Mad’s had seen someone coming up 'behind on a bicycle, a man she recognised ns the accused. He said he would take her home on the bicycle, but the witness said she would rather walk, and ithe accused rode off in front of her.

After walking on for some distance the witness saw the accused walking towards her and when she tried to walk fast he caught her by the hand and pointed to a willow tree, saying that they would go down there. The witness tried to get free, but said the accused would not let her go. She screamed twice, and then the accused covered up her mouth. Cries for Help The witness called to a man named Windsor, who lived nearby. Taukamo pulled her off the road down the gully into some scrub, and told her not to make a noise. She heard someone calling and replied that Darkie Taukamo was interfering with her. The witness said she was crying when Bob McCosth came on the scene, Taukamo having run away. It was the third time that the accused had acted in that manner.

The mother of the girl produced the birth certificate of the previous witness.

Robert Samuel McCosh said he was walking along the Ruatoria-Te Puia road at 11.30 p.m. on Saturday, and when a quarter of a mile from Ruatoria he heard! Acreams, which he thought were coming from a child. When he reached the girl she was alone and crying. The girl said that the accused had been trying to drag ner under a .bush.

Constable J. W. Birch, Ruatoria, read a statement taken from the accused on Monday, in which Taukamo admitted the charge.