Judge is Appalled by Girls’Depravity

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 831, 27 November 1929, Page 1

Judge is Appalled by Girls’Depravity

MENACE TO COMMUNITY INVITATION TO CRIME WELLINGTON, Today. “Such girls as these, if left at large, arc ana will be not only a danger to themselves, but a menace to the youth of the community, and they are simply inviting the commission of crime of the description the prisoner has committed,” said the Chief Justice, the Hon. M. Myers, when James Webster Bittle, aged 28, appeared for sentence on two charges of indecent assault on a female child, and two charges of lobscene exposure. The offences were committed at Petone. After remarking on the painfulness of the case to Bittle himself, who hitherto had bore an excellent character, his Honour went on. “The importance of the matter from a public viewpoint, however, is that the papers before me—disclose depths of depravity on the part of young girls of IX and 12 years of age, which are as appalling are amazing. One might hope that such cases are as uncommon as they are appalling, but unfortunately those of us who have to do with criminals know the contrary.” He was not speaking of the last few months during which he had been in his present position, but from his experience of association with criminal law in the past few years. This was the fourth case within the space of less than a month in which there had been evidence before the court of depravity of the most serious kind on the part of young girls, and he would not have made special mention of it now but for the ages of the two girls. The point he wanted to come to was that such girls as these, if left at large, were, and would be, not only a danger to themselves but to the community. His regret was that there was no power in that court, on the disclosure of such cases, to commit the girls to an institution for a term of years for correction and discipline. He made the suggestion that the court should be invested with such power and commended the suggestion to me consideration of the proper authorities. Bittle was sentenced to 12 months’ reformative detention.