Shell Shock Soldiers.

Hokitika Guardian, 18 March 1922, Page 1

Shell Shock Soldiers.

INADEQUATE TREATMENT.

JUDGE STRINGER ON “AN UNFORTUNATE SYSTEM.”

AUCKLAND, March 8,

Mr Justice Stringer adversely criticised the present system of treatment of shell-shock patients in a case in the Supreme Court at Hamilton in which a young man named Samuel Arthur Pudney was charged with getting £5 by misrepresenting himself to be his brother-in-law, Ronald Harry Knapp Mr E. H. Northcroft represented accused.

Mr Gillies, for tho Crown, s aid prisoner had seen considerable war se.vice, and had suffered, and probably was at present suffering from shell-shoe*. In October of last year he left the military hospital at Rotorua and went to stay with his married sisiter at Purtaruru The evidence would show that when lie loft his sister’s house he, took away his brother-iu-law’s bankbook, < nut lining a credit of £lO. Some days later prisoner presented the bankbo fit io Mr Jury, asking him for an ;dvnncc of £5 pointing out that the bank was closed, and offering to give Jury the book as security for the return of the money. Jury lent the prisoner £5 on the Saturday, and on the Monday prisoner called sgain and asked for the hook in order to draw the money from (lie bank. Jury gave him the book back, but instead of going to the post office, prisoner went to the Hamilton Hotel Prisoner had already pleaded guilty to forging Knapp’s name to a receipt for £lO on a post office withdrawal slip. It would, also be shown that he had represented himself to be Knapp on several occasions. Detective-Sergeant Sweeney put in a signed statement by accused that the signature to the withdrawal slip was his, but said he ha ( j no knowledge of having written. He had no knowledge bo also stated of visiting Hamilton. A good deal of evidence was taken on the subject of shell-shock as affecting the accused's culpability.

HIS HONOUR S REMARKS. His Honour, in his address, said it would be absurd to say that because a man was suffering from shell-shock bo was to be excused as a matter of course from the consequences of his actions. There would be just as much justification to say a man was to be excused because lie was drunk. There wag no doubt prisoner had had a profound shock to his nerves. It seemed an unfortunate system of treatment that such men should be allowed at large before they had properly recovered their self-control. It seemed to His Honour a ridiculous way of treating these men, and it appeared to him that the institutions at which they attended wore wasting their utilities if they permitted men to be at large in such circumstances that they could get drink in unlimited quantities in order to relieve tlioir depressed condition but which really aggravated their already unbalanced state. Tf these institutions Had not the power to detain these men until they bad regained their self-con-trol they should get it It had not yet been established wluit the ultimate .effect of shell-shock was on a man’s mind, and the question was as to whether prisoner’s condition in this case brought him within the definition of an irresponsible person. The acts certainly savoured of deliberate acts of fraud, hut two medical men had declared that he did come within the definition of an irresponsible person. The jury must, therefore, either find him guilty on the facts, or not guilty on the grounds of insanity.