NOT SUSTAINED

Timaru Herald, Volume CLI, Issue 22201, 19 February 1942, Page 4

NOT SUSTAINED

Military Defaulter’s Appeal “EGOISM AMOUNTING ALMOST TO MEGALOMANIA (P.A.) WELLINGTON, February 18. Commenting that the appellant appeared to be suffering from egoism that amounted almost to megalomania, Mr Justice Ostler to-day dismissed the appeal of Michael Young, an organiser, aged 25, against the sentence of three months’ imprisonment passed on him in the Magistrate’s Court as a military defaulter. His Honour said that if he had power to increase the sentence he would do so. The appellant, who had pleaded guilty to the charge, submitted that the sentence was excessive. The Magistrate had said that defaulters would be sentenced to a month, but he had been sentenced to the maximum term because of his alleged subversive activities. Next week he was going to be charged with putting out subversive literature, but he thought he had already been sentenced for that. Until he was sent to gaol he was secretary of the Fellowship of Conscientious Objectors. His Honour said that Young had been punished not only as a defaulter but as a defaulter with a record. The Magistrate had very wisely not allowed the Court to be turned into a propaganda centre and he (the judge) proposed to follow the same course. Young put his undisciplined emotions above the safety and continuance, not only of New Zealand, but of the whole British Commonwealth. To his mind prison was the best place at this moment for men of Young’s mind. The appeal was dismissed with seven guineas costs.