WAS IT CRIMINAL?

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 71, 10 April 1937, Page 5

WAS IT CRIMINAL?

-PresB Aaaooiation.)

Mother Prosecuted At Dunedin RELEASE ORDERED

(Bv Teleeranh-

DUNEDIN, Last Night. • An unusual ease came before Mr. Justice Kennedy in the Supreme Court this morning when Myrtle Grundy, aged 42 years, appeared for sentence on a chaTge of abetting the commission of the crime of carnally knowing a girl under the, aga of 16 years, the latter being the prisoner'a daughter. The prisoner's counsel, Mr. J. P. Ward, said the woman was of low mentality, having difSLculty in understand' ing the meaning of words. She married a man on post-war duty at Trentham. The man later died at Riverton. Tho girl in the case was 15 yea.rs old, but looked 18. She appeared wholly to dominate her mother. The young man concerned lived next door and was "keeping company" with the! girl. He came to the house one night after a disagreement with his father, and the accused offered to make iip a bed for him. Then came the time when he

moved in with the girl, at first unknown to the mother, who was completely browbeaten by the girl. The foolish woman accepted the girl's statement that there wero not enough blahkets in the house to proyide a separate bed, and judging by the woman'a mentality it was reasonable to assume that she accepted the girl's version. The man would marry the girl when she was 16. The Crown Prosecutor, supporting "this view, said that while the poliee were justifled in the action it appeared doubtful whether the woman would have pleaded guilty. There were grave doubts whether she had committed a eriminal offence and certainly no jury would conviet. What had oceurred was through weakuess of mind and not through eriminal intent. His Houour, in ordering the release of the prisoner to come up for sentence if ealled on, said the woman 's mentality probably accounted for her toleration of what happened. She had pleaded guilty but the evidence did not support the eharge which involvefl actual instigaution.