FIRED GUN.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20543, 19 February 1935, Page 7

FIRED GUN.

Criminal Sent to Prison. WOODEND SENSATION. “NO RESPECT POR LAWS OP COUNTRY” Leslie Pearce, for burglary* and committing offences when armed, in particular the Woodend shooting, was sent to gaol for five years by Mr Justice Johnston in the Supreme Court this morning. On each of several charges of attempted burglary the prisoner was sentenced to two years imprisonment, and three years on the other charges, the terms to be concurrent, with two years’ reformative detention to follow. Pearce appeared for sentence on a charge of discharging a revolver at a person with intent to do grievous bodily harm, on three charges of attempting to break into shops, on seven charges of breaking into shops and committing theft, on a charge of being found armed at night with a revolver with intent to break into a warehouse, on a charge of breaking into a shop with intent to commit a crime and with breaking into a warehouse with intent to commit a crime. “Gun Wai Sheer Bravado.” Mr Bowie, who appeared for Pearce, said that the prisoner had instructed him to hand in a statement which he had written. In that counsel wished to draw attention to the fact that Pearce gave his reasons for the breaking and entering offences as the necessity to get money to repay his mother, who was in very poor circumstances. A second point was that the prisoner still maintained that although the jury disbelieved him yesterday, the fact he had carried a gun was out of sheer bravado. Regarding the offences, all that counsel could say was that on his arrest Pearce had given a statement on the charges and had been of assistance in clearing them up. The prisoner had been arrested two and a half months ago and had been in gaol during that time. It was hard to find any* reason for the list of offences. Dr Marshall M ’Donald, who had attended him ten years ago, had made it clear that the prisoner was mentally defective and the doctor had had him sterilised and cause of that. The doctor had stated that Pearce was congenitally* defective, both mentally and morally, and could not have been expected to have the same responsibility for his actions as a normal man. That probably explained the offences as it would perhaps be in prisoner’s own interests to have him examined to find out what was his mental condition.

“ I have read your statement and the report of Dr M’Donald and there is no doubt but that you are a problem to anyone who attempts to understand the mental processes of a man who refuses to abide by the law,” said his Honor. No Respect for the Law. “ The facts are evidence that you deliberately prefer to obtain your living by criminal methods rather than by honest endeavour. That may be due to your mentai condition, but certainly you have no respect for the laws of the country. I think all that can be said for you has been said. It is not only the crimes for which you are appearing for sentence but your long list of previous convictions that make your case so difficult. You have been sentenced to considerable periods of reformative detention and every consideration has been paid to your behaviour and mental outlook. You were sentenced to three years reformative detention in 1921, three years in 1926 and three years’ hard labour in 1931. You have spent most of your time in prison and when you came out you deliberately entered on the same career. Something has got to be done; you have got to be kept in gaol for a considerable time as you have reached the stage of committing armed burglaries.” Sentenced by Magistrate. After receiving his sentence in the Supreme Court, Pearce appeared at the Magistrates’ Court before Mr E. D. Mosley, S.M., and was sentenced to two months’ imprisonment with hard labour on two charges of unlawfully presenting a revolver, and also to three months’ imprisonment with hard labour on each of seven charges unlawfully converting motor-cars to his own