Mother Collapses on Hearing Sentence

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 119, 10 August 1927, Page 1

Mother Collapses on Hearing Sentence

BOY SENT TO BORSTAL EIGHT YEARS IN STATE’S CARE p pHE State, during the past eight -*• years, has done its best for David Asher, a sub-normal boy, aged 17. During that period his mother has not been allowed to try what she could do to help him. Her plea for an opportunity to do so was refused in the Police Court to-day. David Asher pleaded guilty to a charge of stealing £ 6 at Hawera. Senior-Sergeant Edwards said the boy had been under State control for eight years, and the money had been stolen from a man who had him on license. Mr. Selwyn Clark, who appeared for accused, said that the money had been stolen to enable him to visit his mother in Auckland. The boy was sub-normal, and he made repeated attempts to get back to his mother, but she had never been allowed, in recent years, to have the boy in her care. The child welfare officer, Mr. Cupit, said that legally the superintendent of child welfare was now the boy’s guardian, and the mother had no standing. He suggested that he should be sent to the Borstal Institute where he would be disciplined and taught a trade. He Had run away from employment and institutions 26 times, said Mr. Cupit. The magistrate, Mr. E. C. Cutten, S.M., said there was no institution which quite filled the boy’s needs, but the Borstal was the only existing institution likely to do any good. He ordered Asher to be detained at the Borstal for three years. The mother, on hearing the order, was taken from the court in a collapsed state.