BRUTAL CRIMINAL GETS FIVE YEARS’ GAOL AND FLOGGING.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 17865, 5 June 1926, Page 1

BRUTAL CRIMINAL GETS FIVE YEARS’ GAOL AND FLOGGING.

WORST CASE YET, DECLARES JUDGE REED; VICTIM OF PRISONER’S BESTIAL LUST WAS CHILD OF SIX.

Press Association. WELLINGTON, June 5. William Bannerman Rogers, a married man. aged twentyfive, who pleaded guilty to indecent assault on a young girl, appeared before Mr Justice Reed for sentence. Evidence was called to refute the prisoner’s statement that he was subject to fits. The Judge remarked that in 1919 prisoner assaulted a little girl and got three years’ reformative. He had a number of minor offences on his list. This was one of the worst cases he had known of the kind. The victim of his bestial lust was a little girl, aged six. She was now in hospital suffering from venereal disease, communicated by prisoner. The crime was deliberate, and he could not think of anything more brutal than prisoner's treatment of the child throughout. He left her on the sand hills at Lyall Bay, though it was cold and raining. He was sentenced to five years’ hard labour, to he followed by three years’ reformative treatment. One flogging of ten strokes was ordered.