HUTT ROAD FATALITY.

Waikato Times, Volume 102, Issue 17168, 2 August 1927, Page 5

HUTT ROAD FATALITY.

LIGHT SENTENCE CRITICISED

The Wellington Dominion writes editorially:—The public, sense of justice will be shocked by the mildness of the sentences imposed by His Honour Mr Justice Heed on the men Stacey and Harper, convicted of responsibility for the motor fatality on the lIuU Road, which resulted in the untimely death of Henry Brian Kenny. There was not, a single mitigating circumstance in the case. The men stole the car from a stand in a city street. They drove it recklessly and at excessive speed along the Hutt Road, breaking the law and threatening danger to traffic. Ultimately they swerved right across this wide thoroughfare on to the wrong .side of the road, crashed into a service car, Jdiiing the driver and injuring passengers and smashing up the two ears. They might just as easily have killed half-a-do/.en people as one. If ever there was a case calling for an exemplary sentence this was one. Yet His Honour allowed Stacey, the chief offender, to escape with a 12 months' sentence, and Harper, whom the jury had recommended to the mercy of the Court, with nine months. It is impossible to follow His Honour's reasoning for his summing-up to the jury admirably set out the facts, and the implications to bo drawn from the facts. The public, who expect protection against, such outrages, have cv°ry reason io feci concern over the view taken by the Court of the gravity of the crime committed by these men.