ASKED FOR FLOGGING

Hokitika Guardian, 5 August 1929, Page 7

ASKED FOR FLOGGING

YOUNG MAN DID NOT WANT TO GO TO GAOL. AUCKLAND, August 2. “If you would place me on probation say for three years, and order me twenty-five lashes, I think it would do me more good than sending me to prison, your Honour.” This extraordinary request came from a diminutive young'man named Leslie Alfred John Walters, who pleaded guilty in the Hamilton Police Court belfore Mr Wyvern Wilson, S.M. to-day to obtaining credit for £7 10s by fraud at Wellington. Walters,, who is twenty-five years of age, recently went to a boarding-house in Wellington and, telling the proprietor, Thomas Hayman, that Mr Wilson a horse trainer of Takapuna, would pay his board, obtained food and lodging to the value stated; Detective-Sergeant Thompson said accused had admitted the offence. He iwas a young man who had for a long time done no legitimate work. His appearance suggested that he was a jockey ,and he made a practice of hanging about racecourses tipping and “guessing.” The detective mentioned that accused had three previous convictions for theft at Te Kuiti, for obtaining credit by fraud at Onehunga, and for breach of probation. Accused, who cried profusely before entering the dock, admitted that what the detective had said was correct. He had lost his parents nine years ago and having no brothers or sisters, he had been left largely to his devices. He felt quite sure that if his Worship placed him on probation, say for three years and ordered him twehty-fie lashes it would do him more good and he would come through and be better for it than uf he was sent to gaol. The Magistrate told accused not to talk nonsense. He (his Worship) could not order him twenty-five lashes and if he could he would not do so He could not treat pccused as a poor homeless child’. He was a man of twenty-five, and -. the present was not the first time he ■■. had imposed on people. He was { sentenced to one pionth’s imprisonment.