FIFTEEN CHARGES OF INDECENCY

Press, Volume XC, Issue 27397, 9 July 1954, Page 9

FIFTEEN CHARGES OF INDECENCY

MAN SENT TO GAOL , FOR TWO YEARS I Eric Alfred Osmers, a minister of ! religion, aged 53, appeared for sentence in the Magistrate’s Court yes- I terday on 15 charges of indecent as- | sault on males. Osmers, who had previously pleaded guilty to all i charges, was convicted and sentenced | to be detained for reformative purposes for a period of two years on each charge, the sentences to be con- i current. Mr Rex C. Abernethy, S.M., was on the Bench. “I would venture to say that this is probably one of the most tragic cases to have been before this Court,” said Mr A. B. Hobbs, who represented Osmers. “My client’s record of service is well known. The Probation Officer has detailed his work over the last 30 years and has set out the qualifications which he has brought to bear on his work. His life and work now lie in ruins at his feet.” Mr Hobbs said there was no punishment which the Court could inflict which could equal the fall from grace in the community which Osmers had suffered. “He is a broken and penitent man,” he said. He urged the Court to give consideration to Osmers’s work over the last 30 years and to the Probation Officer’s report. Mr Hobbs submitted that to place Osmers on probation would give him ! a chance “to rehabilitate, to become ’ once again a useful and serving mem- • ber of the community.” “Osmers, you have pleaded guilty ; to 15 charges of indecent assault on i three boys,” said the Magistrate. “The first assaults happened in December, ■ 1950, and the last in June, 1954, last i month.”

Whether homosexuality was a deliberate act of wickedness, or a disease of the mind, or the result of some lack in the physical or mental complement of the offender which drove him on, or some mixture of them all no-one at present knew, the Magistrate said. “But when the offence‘finds a grown man of mature years, education and responsible position and a minister of religion corrupting young boys aged 12 and 13, or being a to their further corruption it becomes clear that at this present point of knowledge, or if you will, of our barely enlightened ignorance, the Courts can in such cases do' no other than impose a substantial term of imprisonment or reformative detention. There would have to be very special circumstances to justify probation,” he said. “Osmers, you have lived two separate lives; one of a highly respected, unsuspected minister of religion fighting down with long periods of success this hom» sexuality which beset you from a youth; the other, apparently known only to a few associates, abnormal, corrupting. That in the privacy of your thoughts you have been, as you admit, in hell, I do not doubt.” said the Magistrate. There had been damage done to three boys, and perhaps to other boys, which accused might never undo, said the Magistrate. Accused had grossly abused a position of great trust. Furthermore, though before the police a month ago discovery had drawn from him an honest admission of guilt and remorse, today it appeared that 1 he was making a pitiful attempt at rationalising his behaviour behind the shelter of the misdeeds of the boys. [ “With a full sense of the fight that ' you have had since youth to grapple with this grim spectre in your life, and with a full sense of the tragic ruin that has come upon you, I have none the less come to the distressing conclusion that it is my duty to send you to gaol,” concluded the Magistrate.