NO PARDON

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIII, Issue 170, 21 July 1942, Page 3

NO PARDON

CASE OF CECIL HUMPHREYS

HOBART CITIZENS' PETITION (P.A.) WELLINGTON, Monday. A petition by prominent citizens of Hobart was placed before the Minister of Justice, Mr. Mason, recently by the Mayor of Wellington, Mr. T. C. A. Hislop, on behalf of the Lord Mayor of Hobart, asking the Government to consider the case of Cecil Hugh Richard Humphreys, the young man who was extradited from Tasmania to the Dominion, with a view to recommending that the appropriate authorities exercise the prerogative of mercy. The Minister has stated that it would be neither in Humphreys' interests nor in the interests of discipline in prison institutions for a pardon to be granted. Sentence Believed Severe The petition asserted that the original sentence of two years for stealing a jacket was very severe for an apparently trifling offence, and the petitioners were convinced that its severity was a contributing cause to all the subsequent offences. It was suggested that a generous pardon might divert the course of his life from one of crime into a useful channel. "Humphreys is reported to have informed the Court in Tasmania that he wished to enlist, and when asked why he had not done so in New Zealand, he said he was working on munitions," said the Minister. "In actual fact he had deserted from the army three times and was never engaged on making munitions." Admission of Thefts Regarding the initial sentence of two years in a Borstal institute, the Minister said the magistrate, although nominally dealing with the theft of a waterproof jacket valued at £2, would take the whole circumstances into consideration. Humphreys in addition to the theft of the coat admitted, inter alia, the theft of an outboard motor, the conversion of a motor cycle and the theft of a tent fly. The police and probation reports showed that he was of a lazy, roving disposition, and the magistrate would properly conclude that for a young man of this type a period of discipline and training would be in his best interests. "My present view is that the matter should be left for the Court to determine in the ordinary wav " said Mr. Mason. ' Humphreys has evaded the police since he jumped overboard from a ship in the Waitemata Harbour.