AN INADEQUATE SENTENCE.

Taranaki Daily News, 14 December 1921, Page 4

AN INADEQUATE SENTENCE.

We have carefully read the evidence and the judge’s observations in the case of the . middle-aged man who was sentenced by Mr. Justice Reed to three years’ imprisonment on Saturday last, and, whilst we do not care to criticise the actions or decisions of a Supreme. Court judge, who has a difficult task to perform, and is guided strictly by a desire to do justice, we feel that a far too lenient view was taken of this man’s awful crime. Hardly a more revolting one has come before the local court. The creature—he cannot be called a man—took advantage of the absence of the parents from the house in which the family were living to assault a little girl of fourteen years, and then to attack a mere babe of nineteen months. Grown-ups can realise the nature and the consequences of such a brutal assault upon two young and innocent lives. The facts were .so clear that the jury brought in a verdict of guilty without leaving the box, and the only plea that counsel could advance was that accused, being drunk, had no knowledge of the events, and, therefore, had no guilty mind, a plea which the judge rightly brushed aside, and went on to remark that such an event was an offence whether a man was drunk or not; “otherwise there would be no protection for women and children.” Then, strangely enough, he sentenced him to but three years’ imprisonment. It may be claimed that the offence was aggravated rather than palliated by drunkenness. It is difficult to conceive, a more fitting case for the exercise of the greatest severity. Fathers and mothers have a right to look to the Supreme Court Bench for protection for their children from such inhuman brutes, and to see that an example is made of them when caught red-handed as this creature was. Not only is such condign treatment in the interests of the community, but in the interests of the pervert himself. He should be put out of harm’s way for as long a period as the law allows, and the heinousness of his crime brought home to him by the application of the lash. It may be successfully argued that mental or surgical treatment in such cases would be more efficacious than imprisonment or corporal punishment, but we have not yet reached that stage where cases of the kind can be minutely and scientifically treated. Meantime there are little girls to protect from the ravages of these degenerates, and such a light sentence as that imposed on Saturday cannot be regarded as a deterrent at all. We protest against its inadequacy, and trust that similar leniency wall not be exercised again in- cases of the kind. If so, then it is conceivable that confidence in the Supreme Court Bench may be gravely shaken.