SOLICITOR’S PLEA

Hokitika Guardian, 28 June 1932, Page 3

SOLICITOR’S PLEA

TIME FOR STUDY IN GOAL. (Per Press Association — Copyright.) WELLINGTON, June 25. The hope that whatever sentence was passed upon him would not prevent him from embarking on a course of study in prison was the burden of the plea made to Mr Justice Ostler in the Supreme Court by Douglas Barrington Kent, aged 58, formloy a solictor in practice at Waipiikiirau. Kent appeared for sentence on nine charges of having fraudulenty omitted to account for trust moneys amounting to over £BfX>. He was sentenced to reformative treatment for a period not exceeding three years.

Speaking from the dock, Kent said ho realised the offence with which he, was charged was not one upon which the Court could grant probatb n. Ho realised a term of imprisonment was justified, and while in prison it seemed to him that he might utilise his spai'e time in study. “I am sorry indeed to see you in this position,” said Mr Justice Ostler, to the prisoner, “Of course you musr. have known when you took these moneys that it would inevitably come to this; and as you have admitted the charges I have got no other course in the public interest than to pass sentence on you. F have no doubt whatever that your desire to study is laudatory and I also have no doubt flint, subject to prison regulations, the Prisons Department, will place no obstacles in your way.”