GRAY BROTHERS’ CRIMES

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 895, 12 February 1930, Page 13

GRAY BROTHERS’ CRIMES

ATTEMPTED MURDER AND ARSON

SENTENCE POSTPONED Press Association CHRISTCHURCH. Today. In expectation of Charles Robert Gray and James Wilfred Gray being sentenced on a long list of charges, the Supreme Court was crowded this morning. Those who attended heard a long address by the young men’s counsel, Mr. M. J. Burns, but Mr. Justice Adams said he wished to consider carefully all that Mr. Burns had said and he would not pass sentence until Friday. Mr. Burns gave most of his time and attention to Charles Robert Gray, the younger brother, who shot Mr. E. H. Hammond, ahd whom Mr. Burns described as the ringleader in “this extraordinary series of crimes.” Counsel added that the judge would appreciate that it was very difficult for counsel to say anything whatever in the way of mitigation in the face of the large number of crimes the brothers had committed, but it was very important that everything connected 'with the young men and their crimes should be placed before the court. The family was in poor circumstances as the father could not get regular employment. Counsel appealed for leniency on the ground of the youth of the prisoners and urged that both be declared habitual criminals as they then would be under the control of the Prisons Board.

The two brothers, aged 17 and 19, were charged with a total of 46 crimes, including arson, burglary and theft. They pleaded guilty to nearly all the charges, including the attempted murder of Mr. E. H. Hammond, preferred against the younger of the two. During the hearing of the case many of the mysteries connected with the recent series of incendiary fires in Christchurch were solved.