A DEGENERATE YOUTH

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 118, 9 August 1927, Page 15

A DEGENERATE YOUTH

SYSTEM NOT TO BLAME FRANCIS ALLEN COBURN'S CAREER Press Association. WELLINGTON, To-day. A copy of a telegram from Auckland in regard to the sentencing of Francis Allen Coburn was submitted to the Minister of Education, who produces a report showing that accused was first admitted to Weraroa at the age of 14A at the request of his parents, who complained of the boy’s filthy habits. He was in residence intermittently for two years. Then in 1921 he was committed to a mental hospital on account of thieving and generally depraved habits. At Weraroa the boy was not a fit associate with other inmates, and had to be watched night and day and kept entirely apart. Statements of counsel were not only contrary to fact, so far as Coburn was concerned, but showed an entire lack qf knowledge of the system of classification and training as carried out at the farm. The department assures the public that there is no cause for alarm. The welfare of the boys is amply safeguarded by a suitable and competent staff. A sentence of five years—two with hard labour, followed by three years’ reformative detention —was passed on Francis Allen Coburn in the Supreme Court by Mr. Justice Herdman. Coburn, who had been found guilty on two charges of attempted indecent assault on a male and one of indecent assault, was stated by his counsel to be a man of 24 years of age, who had spent practically all his life in Government institutions. He had been sent to Burnham when a boy of 10 for thieving, and there had sustained a broken arm, which counsel alleged could have been saved but for the negligence of the authorities. Thereafter he had spent his time in mental hospitals, and had been finally discharged as cured, although there again counsel alleged carelessness. It was a case which could be controlled by constant work, physically and mentally. He had received no education, nor had he learnt any trade. Since his release from a mental hospital in November last he had lived with his father. The prisoner was sub-normal and abnormal, and had become a sexual pervert through contact with fellowprispners.