MENACE TO SOCIETY

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 1, Issue 91, 8 December 1931, Page 6

MENACE TO SOCIETY

ELDERLY MAN SENTENCED FOR GRAVE ASSAULT ON CHILD "NOTHING IN HIS FAVOUR" "This man is a menace to society, and I have nothing whatever to say in his favour. He is 60 years of age and appears cto live for nothing else but taking down young children," said Senior-Sergeant Carroll, in the Rotorua Magistrate's Court yesterday, when stating the facts against an elderly man named William Parton, who pleaded guilty to an aggravated assault upon a small girl, seven years of age. The .senior-sergeant stated that Parton had lured two small children into a thicket near the railway plantation, where he had behaved in a particularly beastly manner towards one of them. Fortunately some other children with whom these two had been in company, had beeome apprehensive and had informed a woman who was passing by. This lady had immediately gone into the plantation where she accosted Parton and asked him what he was doing to the child. Later information reached the police who had arrested Parton. Other Complaints For some months past, complaints had been received regarding aceused's behaviour. He had offered small children money and lollies and had tried to make appoiritments to meet some of them. He had been warned by the police but had apparently persisted. Another manoeuvre of the accused was to get small children to come to his hut near the Blue Baths. Parton had recently been discharged from prison after serving a sentence for a similar offence in Rotorua and had a lengthy list. The accused had nothing to say and was sentenced to two years' reformative detention.