SENTENCE TO GAOL.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LX, Issue 244, 12 September 1940, Page 3

SENTENCE TO GAOL.

CHARGE OE ABDUCTION. l’er Press Association. AYIIAKATANE, Sept. 11. Charged with the abauction of a 13-year-oid girl and escape frdm custoay, Arthur Mitchell Wray, aged 25, appeared before Mr Walton, S.M., at Whakatanc. Ho was sentenced to three months’ gaol on the first charge and remanded.on the second. Wray pleaded guilty to the charges. The police said that Wray, formerly a school bus driver, struck up a friend-" ship with one of the children. He sold his business and left the district with the girl, going to Taupo, where he was arrested, living with her as Mr and Mrs Smith. I Mr B. S. Barry (for accused) saul AY ray, with the consent of the s family, had been going about»wr& her for 12 months. She suggested to Wray that they should go away together. At Taupo she set up house in a manner which would have done credit to any woman. She said the period was the happiest in her life. . Counsel submitted that the hardships AVray suffered during 'his period at liberty in tho bush after liis escape would save him from penalty when he appeared in the Supreme Court, and asked that the second charge be withdrawn. . “Abduction is considered a serious offence, and rightly so,” said Mr Walton. sentencing accused. “There was no possibility of AVrav mistaking the age of the child, as she was only 10.