A SALUTARY SENTENCE.

Taranaki Daily News, 9 February 1934, Page 6

A SALUTARY SENTENCE.

The decision of the Chief Justice to inflict the punishment of flogging upon a man guilty of assaulting a little girl will be approved throughout the Dominion. In delivering judgment, Sir Michael Myers referred to his • abhorrence of corporal punishment, and indicated that medical advice had been sought before the sentence was decided upon. To make the punishment fit the crime in such cases of sexual depravity is one of the problems of His Majesty’s Judges. Punishment must be reformative as well as punitive if it is to have the desired result, yet in offences involving physical as well as moral harm to children it seems evident that sentences must be severe enough to act as a deterrent to others as well as to punish a particular criminal. Many of these offences are doubtless due to pathological conditions rather than to criminal instincts, a point upon which in the Wellington case the Chief Justice evidently sought guidance, and knowledge of this must weigh with a judge whose duty it is to inflict punishment upon offenders. But first and foremost there must be adequate protection for the women and children of the Dominion from perverts whether pathological or criminal. That is the first duty of organised society, and every parent in the Dominion will hold that the severity of the Wellington sentence was thoroughly justified as being but in keeping with the performance of that duty.