A YOUTH’S CONFESSION

Hokitika Guardian, 7 February 1925, Page 1

A YOUTH’S CONFESSION

— tgjf, ST I ’ AXO K CASK AT XAPI lit?. XAPIKU, Feb. u. Already serving a term of seven years’ detention in tlio Borstal Institution in Invercargill, to which he was committed in 19:2:2 from tho Napier Supremo Court for burning down the homestead on the Smollev listate in March of that year, John Oartshore Robertson, a well set up, smart looking youth about nineteen years of age. stepped into the dock at the .Napier Police Court this morning, before Mill. TV. Dyer, S.M., to answer the following charges:— (U Setting lire to a building on the Smellev listaLe near Tikokino, consisting of sleeping (pinrtors, diningroom and kitchen, valued at £lO9, the properly of 11 is Majesty the King, on J uly 1.4, I OAR, thereby committing arson. (2) Further with, on the same date, committing manslaughter by setting lire to a certain building on the Smolley Estate, thereby causing the death of one John Judea. Accused was undefended. Detective-Sergeant I’.iitler, who (onducted the prosecution, said it was a most extraordinary ease. Accused ban appeared in the Napier Court in 1922 on a. charge ol arson, and was subsequently sentenced In tho Borslni Institute at Invercargill for a term id seven years lor arson. The charge in question then was of the burning of ihc homestead on the station in March •J.j, 1923. Later the men's sleeping quarters on the same station also were ill\'steriously destroyed by lire, and aa result of the latter lire a man had lost bis life. Accused bad admitted causing the first lire, but bad denied causing flic second outbreak. On October Hi, 1924. while Hie prisnneds at the Borstal Institute were being paraded. accused banded to the chiel warder a, note confessing bis responsibility for causing the second lire, amt that note, was the foundation of the present charges. Accused pleaded guilty and was committed for sentence.