MAN CHARGED WITH ABDUCTION

Southland Times, Issue 24230, 13 September 1940, Page 6

MAN CHARGED WITH ABDUCTION

SENTENCE OF THREE MONTHS’ IMPRISONMENT (United Press Association) WHAKATANE, September 12. Charged with the abduction of a 13-year-old girl and with escaping from custody, Arthur Mitchell Wray, aged 25, appeared before Mr E. L. Walton, S.M., at Whakatane. He was sentenced to three months’ imprisonment on the first charge and was remanded on the second. Wray pleaded guilty to the charges. The police said that Wray, formerly a school bus driver, struck up a friendship 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.

Mr B. S. Barry, for the accused, said that Wray, with the consent of the girl’s family, had been going about with 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 that the period was the happiest in her life. Counsel submitted that the hardships which Wray had suffered during his. period at liberty in the bush after his escape would save him a penalty when he appeared in the Supreme Court and asked that the second charge be withdrawn.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 in sentencing the accused. There was no possibility of Wray mistaking the age of the child.