PRISONER’S REQUEST.

Star (Christchurch), Volume XLIV, Issue 301, 19 December 1931, Page 1

PRISONER’S REQUEST.

Judge Agrees not to Increase Term. Per Press Association. AUCKLAND, December 19. A request by a prisoner that any term of imprisonment the Court might impose should date from July 28 last was granted by Mr Justice Reed in sentencing Percival John Scantlebury on four charges of theft at the Supreme Court. Counsel for prisoner said that the latter was at present serving a term of three years’ imprisonment for making a false declaration on an audit certificate. This had been done to cover up difficulties in which he had found himself. He got behind in hi* books, and had overdrawn from his trust account. Up to date Scantlebury had assisted the police and the Official Assignee to reduce his clients’ loss a* much as possible. The amount was now well below £llOO, and there would be a further reduction of about £250. The prisoner had suffered from disgrace, and was also suffering by the term of imprisonment he was serving. Scantlebury, from the dock, asked if he might supplement the remarks of his counsel, and, his request being granted, he said that of the term of three years he had already served four and a half months, and this, with the remission a prisoner might expect for good conduct, was equivalent to six months. He was not responsible for the delay in bringing the case before the Supreme Court. “If your Honor intends to pass a similar sentence to the one I am now serving, I would ask that it should take effect from July 28 last,” he said. His Honor said that he did not intend to increase the term which the prisoner was now serving, and would sentence him to three years reformstive detention, the sentence to be concurrent with the one the prisoner was now serving and to date from July 28 last.