GAOL FOR BOOKMAKER.

Taranaki Daily News, 10 May 1921, Page 5

GAOL FOR BOOKMAKER.

-IX MONTHS’ HARD LABOR.

SENTENCE ON WHITTA

By Telegraph —Press Association. Christchurch, May 9. ■William Whitta, who was convicted of carrying on business as a bookmaker in Christchurch, was sentenced by Mr. Justice Herdman to six months’ hard tabor and also ordered to pay the costs pf the prosecution. In appealing to Mr. Justice Herdman for leniency, Whitta’s counsel (Mr. C. S. Thomas) said for years gambling and bookmaking had been carried on in New Zealand from one end to the other. “The Legislature in the past tried to curb it and bring it within reasonable bounds, but I am afraid without success,” he added. “The reason, no doubt, is that gambling is a national failing, and is taken part in from the highest to the lowest, and by only the most stringent measures will the Government control it. Whitta’s offence is a statutory one, not a moral one, and it is not allied to the ordinary criminal offence. Two wrongs, of course, do not make a right, but thousands of men up to the time last session’s Act was passed had committed the same offence. Betting had been going on, and it had been looked upon as a thing at Which the Legislature winked, but it is realised now that the Legislature will not wink at it. In this Cburt you have granted probation to thieves, rogues, and vagabonds and to ordinary criminals, and I ask you to extend to Whitta the same leniency as you extend to men guilty of criminal offences.”

The Judge said that prisoner had been before the court on several occasions in connection with offences relating to gambling. It was dear from the evidence that prisoner and his son had carried on the business of bookmakers extensively. Prisoner knew the state of the law and deliberately made up his mind to defy it. He would take into consideration prisoner’s age and the fact that it was the first case of the kind in •which a jury had found an accused person sruiltv.