SERIOUS CHARGES

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 80, Issue 264, 6 November 1937, Page 11

SERIOUS CHARGES

SENTENCES ON MAORIS GISBORNE SUPREME COURT [ Ter Press Association. ] GISBORNE, Nov. 5. Commenting that members of the Maori race would agree that their womenfolk had to be protected and adding that it was a case calling for exemplary punishment, Mr. Justice Ostler to-day sentenced Watarawi Tatae, alias Walter Wilson, to three years’ hard labour for indecent assault. The evidence on which the jury convicted accused showed that he had driven a 17-year-old girl to his whare against her will, given her a black eye, and otherwise injured her, before threatening her with a knife and frightening her into spending the night with him. Accused was a married mart with two children, but for some time had been living with the elder sister of complainant, the sister having been present at the time of the assault. Tieki Mauhana, convicted on two charges of carnal knowledge of a girl aged 14, was sentenced to six months’ imprisonment, the Judge commenting that Maori girls were entitled to the same protection as Europeans. Two other Maoris, Hohura Kukurangi and Neehi Teera, charged with carnal knowledge, were admitted to probation for 12 months on condition that they pay the costs of the prosecution, the Judge commenting that'in these cases the probation officer’s report was favourable. For breaking and entering and

theft of motor tyres from a garage where he was formerly employed, Ferdinand John Chambers was sentenced to 12 months’ gaol. Remarking that in various parts of the Dominion meh had been sent to gaol for defrauding the unemployment fund, Mr. Justice Ostler, at the Supreme Court this morning, remarked that he could not do other than impose a sentence of imprisonment on an official of the department who also had participated in the raid on the fund. Prisoner was Percy Fulton, formerly employment officer at Gisborne, who pleaded guilty to eleven charges of making false documents and seven of false pretences whereby he obtained £l3 5s from the unemployment fund, and was sentenced to six months’ gaol.