PROBATION FOR HOUSEWIFE

Press, Volume C, Issue 29513, 13 May 1961, Page 14

PROBATION FOR HOUSEWIFE

111-Treatment Of Stepdaughter

(N.Z. Press Association)

WELLINGTON, May 12.

Ann Marie Hill, aged 33. a housewife, was convicted and put on probation for three years when she appeared for sentence before Mr J. F. Keane, S.M., in the Magistrate’s Court today on two charges involving the ill-treatment of her 11-year-old step-daughter. Special conditions of her probation were that she shall not have her vstepdaughter, Jennifer Margaret Hill, in her home except with the written consent of the probation officer and that she permit an officer of the Child Welfare Department to inspect her home and children at such times as approved or directed by the probation officer. Evidence was given at the hearing on Monday that the child was scalded in a hot bath. Mr J. B. O’Regan, for Hill, submitted the case called for great clemency. He said that at the time she was two days short of being delivered of twins and so could not receive the usual treatment for the four broken ribs from which she was suffering. The Magistrate said that although he could have imposed a term of imprisonment, under the circumstances he did not think It proper to do so, and as she was a woman with no income a monetary penalty would be difficult to implement. The special conditions of her probation would safeguard the younger members of her family against a repetition of her conduct now that the stepdaughter had gone, he said.