IN GAOL 22 YEARS

Hokitika Guardian, 17 September 1932, Page 2

IN GAOL 22 YEARS

“NEVER TO BE RELEASED” TIIE DANGERS OF LENIENCY •SYDNEY, September 15 The agitation over the hanging of Moxley appears to have stirred the depths of public sentimentalism in this State and a movement has been started to secure the release of one, William Phillips, from Parramatta Gaol. In 1910 this monster —or maniac, whichever one chooses to call him—murdered his eleven year-old daughter unde r circumstances so horrible' that there is nothing to be gained by recalling them. He was sentenced to death, but the Executive Council commuted the sentence to imprisonment for life -taking the •precaution to endorse the papers “never to be released.”

Phillips has served twenty-two years of his sentence and now he has “got religion”—l use the phrase with no Hjrjreverent intention—'and the g-aol chaplain urges the authorities to give some hope of the future. 1 Unfortunately there is no means of discovering whether “such m alleged reformation is radical and sincere, and even if it is so, whether it is likely to be permanent. It happens that the Executive Council 1 ini Victoria has been this week considering a similar case, which serves well to illustrate 'the danger, in such circumstances of wellintentioned leniency.

Two months ago Robert Bennett, a man of fifty-nine, committed a. capital offence upon «■ four-year-old girl, and he was sentenced to death. After the verdict had been given, Bennett, in reply to questions from the Bench, admitted that he bad been found guilty in 1911 of a criminal assu'lt upon a little child, and was + hen sentenced to a flogging and impi'.sonment for life. The details of this crime roused public, indignation against Bennett to such fury at the time that scores of men volunteered to form a party to storm the gaol and lynch him. Yet, in spite of all this, in three years—May, 1914—some of the clergymen visiting the gaol were convinced that Bennett Was seen the errors of ways and that he was a’converted’ man. They persuaded the Attorney-General, Mr Walter—thenceforward known to all Western Australians as “Sentimental Tommy”—to order Bennett’s release, an,d bo he was let loose again to prey upon his fellow creatures once more. In 1917 after several minor offences, h© was sentenced to fifteen years’ imprisonment for robbery under arms; but again on the. plea of “religion, public sentimentality secured his release when he had served only half of his term. And so he has been preserved and protected, alive and free to commit another (revolting outrage ; and even now there are men and women so blind to their responsibilities as to advocate the remission of the deathsentence again. Th© cas© against Bennett is a strong one, but it is - not much stronger, at least in principle* than the caee against William Phillips, who was condemned for a no le?s awful crime, and was sentenced “never to be released.” If the plea of “religion” and maudlin sentiment combined avail in cases like these, the society that tolerates them deserves all the consequences.