SUPREME COURT.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LI, Issue 291, 3 December 1908, Page 4

SUPREME COURT.

AUCKLAND -SITTINGS. By Telegraph.—Press Association. , ... Auckland, Tuesday. l'ive persons appeared before the .upreine Court tins moruing for sentence for sexual offences upo n children. •Justice Edwarus remarked upon the inf r ' mi ' a " l ' s kind an( l noted that the hist two grand juries had advocated most drastic- punishment, Rcelnald William Service, for attempting mpe on a little girl, was sentenced to seven years hard labour with two Hoggings of twenty-five lashes each. Prisoner remarked: "And may you drop stone dead keioiv \ ou pass another sentence!" He was promptly removed troni the Court. \ Thomas John GeUye, a youth not well balanced mentally, was sentenced to one years imprisonment for indecent assault.

An old man named James William Adamson declared tluit the case against him was a pure fabrication. The Judge said he had been rightly convicted. 1l was absolutely shocking to see an olci man like accused, with one foot in the grave, assaulting little children. Prisoner's extreme age and weakness would make it brutal to indict a Hogging. That would be reniitted, but « suilicienlly deterrent punishment must be given, lit.sentenced him to three years' hard labour.

A plea for mercy was put in on behalf of Harry Polanu Frost on the ground that the jury had found hint j guilty only of intent to commit assault. The Judge said the jury had allowed its feelings of mercy to outweigh its discretion. No doubt the full crime had been committed. He could only deal with it as a case of intent, but, had it been in his power, he would have ordered a flogging, following the recommendation of the Grand Juries both at the last and at the present sittings. The maximum penalty of two years' imprisonment, which, the Judge said, was quite inadequate, was imposed. In sentencing Henry Thompson, found guilty of ten offences of indecent exposure, the Judge slid the offences were most disgusting, and so serious that they were made indictable so that the punishment of whipping might be added. By a curious oversight of the Legislature it was not in his power '<> order that punishment, because the Crimes Act said, "Whipping shall not be ordered for any offender over sixteen." The extreme penalty was one year's imprisonment for each offence. The Judge ordered two months' imprisonment for each offence—a total of twenty months.

WELLINGTONS' SESSIONS. -Wellington, Wednesday. After three trials on a charge of having assaulted a wharf laborer, John Butler was found guilty on a minor count and was sentenced at the Supreme Court to-day to three months' imprisonment.