Our Unprotected Youth.

Southland Times, Issue 14287, 2 March 1899, Page 4

Our Unprotected Youth.

On Monday last, in his charge to the Grand Jury at Christchurch, Mr Justice Denniston expressed himself very clearly upon the effects of the present law as to the age of consent, and his Honour is certainly to be congratulated upon his courageous exposure of a manifest injustice. The remarks in question were uttered in connection with a charge of criminal assault upon a girl under sixteen, and although the subject is not a pleasant one to discuss, Mr Justice Denniston’s words deserve the careful consideration of those who mistakenly consider the male offender to be invariably the sole cause of the sin. “The present charge,” said the Judge, “ was one of intercourse with a girl under the age of sixteen, and there was no question of violence. It was a case of the acquiescence of the girl. An assignment had been made, accepted and discovered by the parents. There was no question that the girl had been ignorant of the nature of the act. Up to the year 1936 there would have been no crime in this case. Until 1894 the age of consent bad been fourteen; in that year the age had been raised to fifteen, and in 1896 it had been further raised to sixteen. It had been suggested as a matter of practical politics io raise the age of consent to eighteen, and even twenty-one. There was no case for conviction in the fact that very many girls under sixteen were ignorant of the act of consent. The original law of consent was an intelligible one when the girl was ignorant. Its object was to prevent persons who assaulted young girls citing consent in their defence. But girls of about the age of sixteen were perfectly cognisant of their action. Under the present law a girl immediately under the age of sixteen might be the actual seducer of a lad of, say, seventeen, and might bring criminal proceedings against him, and be able to extort money from the lad. That was the existing law. They had heard a great deal lately about the protection of their girls, but it seemed to him that in the present state of the law there was considerable necessity for the protection of their young boys. It seemed an extraor 1 dinary thing that a lad might be seduced, and yet the girl who seduced him had the power to hale him before a Court of Justice, and cause him to be convicted of a crime of which she was th.e cause ” °" a of our southern contemporaries has raised a hysterical wail over the Judge’s preference of common sense to high-sounding sentiment, and deplores the fact that the Grand Jury, in the face of his declaration that the accused was guilty before the law, preferred the Judge’s view of the equities of the case and returned no bill. Such a course, though not strictly legal, was necessary to bring before the public the inconsistencies of the present system. Perhaps the Premier will see his way to amend the law, and before doing so to refer the matter formally to the Judges of the Supreme Court for their report upon such amendments as may in their opinion be necessary 'to meet the equities of the situation.—Post.