TWO YEARS’ GAOL FOR ARSON

Taranaki Daily News, 1 August 1931, Page 7

TWO YEARS’ GAOL FOR ARSON

“TOOL OF ANOTHER OFFENDER.”

ONE OF MOST SERIOUS CRIMES.

By Telegraph.—Press Association.

Wellington, July 31. In sentencing Hilton Herbert Brooks, who had pleaded guilty to wilfully setting fire to the garage of Birkett and Sons on April 20, the Chief Justice, Sir Michael Myers, said he did not regard Brooks as the principal offender, and took that into consideration in determining the ’sentence. “Let there be no mistake as to the serious view the court takes of the crime of arson,” he said. “I regard it myself as one of the most serious of crimes. It was worse than mischief and fraud combined because it involved an element of danger to human life. If you could properly be regarded as the person really responsible for this serious crime I should have passed upon you a very lengthy term of imprisonment. Ido not regard you as the real and principal offender. . ‘‘l myself formed the opinion, which is confirmed by what the Crown Prosecutor tells me is the theory of the police, that you were very largely, perhaps altogether, a tool. Nevertheless I am not going to pass over the matter with anything like a nominal sentence. I am tak*ing all the facts into consideration and the sentence of the court is that you be kept in prison with hard labour for a term of two years.”