MR WESTON’S OFFENCES AGAINST THE PERSON BILL.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume III, Issue 671, 24 June 1882, Page 2

MR WESTON’S OFFENCES AGAINST THE PERSON BILL.

The following is the text of Mr Weston’s Bill to Amend the “ Offences Against the Person Act, 1867 :

1. The Short Title of this Act is “ The Offences Against the Person Act, 1867, Amendment Act, 1882.” 2. It shall be no defence to a charge or indictment for an indecent assault on a young person under the age of thirteen years to prove that he or she consented to the act of indecency. 3. Whenever any person shall be convicted of an assault upon his wife or upon a female with whom he is cohabiting, committed after the passing of this Act, the Court by or before whom he is convicted may, if it shall think fit, in addition to or in lieu of any punishment at the time of the passing of this Act by law imposed for such offence, direct that the offender be once or twice privately whipped: Provided the number of stripes do not exceed at each such whipping, and that the Court in its sentence shall specify the number of stripes to be inflicted and the instrument to be used.

4. Whenever any male person between the ages of seven and eighteen years shall be convicted of an assault upon any male or female in a public street or thoroughfare, or of wilfully and maliciously destroying the property of any person, or of exposing his person in a public street or thoroughfare, committed or done after the passing of this Act, the Court by or before whom be is convicted may, if it shall think fit, in addition to or in lieu of any punishment at the time of the passing of this Act by law imposed for such offence, direct that the offender be once or twice privately whipped with a birch-rod; Provided that the number of stripes do not exceed strokes at each such whipping. 6. Every whipping authorised by the third and fourth sections of this Act shall take place within six calendar months from the passing of the sentence of the Court; and at each whipping the surgeon or medical officer of the gaol in which the offender is confined shall be present when the said punishment is inflicted, and such surgeon or medical officer, if ho be of opinion that the prisoner is not at any time able to boar the whole or any part of the punishment so awarded, may from time to time order the infliction of tiro whole or any part of the said punishment to be postponed, and shall within seven days after the making of any such order send a report in writing, staging his reasons for making such order, to the Colonial Secretary.