THE HUTT ROAD SMASH

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLVIII, Issue 3672, 30 July 1927, Page 2

THE HUTT ROAD SMASH

GUILTY OF MANSLAUGHTER. STACEY AND HARPER’S MILD PUNISHMENT. Henry Stacey anti Ernest Edwin Harper, who speeded along the Hutt Road on May 24th in a stolen motor ear, collided with a service ear, and killed its driver, Henry Brian Kenny, were found guilty of manslaughter in the Wellington Supreme Court on Thursday by the jury after seventy-five minutes’ retirement. Mr Justice Reed sentenced Stacey to twelve months’ imprisonment with hard labour, and, giving effect to the jury’s recommendation to mercy, sentenced Harper to nine months’ imprisonment with hard labour.

The Dominion, in an .editorial comment on the above, says:—“The publih sense of justice will be shocked by the mildness of the sentences imposed by His Honour Mr Justice Reed on the men Stacey and Harper, convicted of responsibility for the motor fatality on the Hutt Road, which resulted in the untimely death of Henry Brian Kenny. There was not a single mitigating circumstance in the case. The men stole the car from a stand in a city street. They drove it recklessly and at excessive speed along the Hutt Road, breaking the law and threatening danger to traffic. Ultimately they swerved right across this wide thoroughfare on to the wrong side of the road, crashed into a service ear, killing the' driver and injuring passengers and smashing up the two cars. They might just as easily have killed half a dozen people as one. If there was a case calling for an exemplary sentence this was one. Yet His Honour allowed Stacey, the chief offender, to escape with a twelve months’ sentence, and Harper, whom the jury had recommended to the mercy of the Court, with nine months. It is impossible to follow His Honour’s reasoning, for his summing-up to the jury_ admirably set out the facts, and the implications to be drawn from the facts, The public, who expect protection against such outrages, have every reason to feel concern over the view taken by the "Court of the gravity of the crime committed by these men.”