PRISONER SENTENCED.

Taranaki Daily News, 16 February 1922, Page 8

PRISONER SENTENCED.

PEMBROKE ROAD CASE. EIGHT MONTHS’ HARD Sentence was passed hi the Supreme Court, New Plymouth, yesterday, on Henry I. D. Mackay, who was found guilty on Tuesday of the charge of carnally knowing a girl under the age of sixteen years. The jury’s finding included a plea for leniency" for the sake of Mackay’s wife and child. When the prisoner was placed in the dock, his counsel (Mr. L. M. Moss) said he desired to call the probation officer for Stratford to give his report as to what he knew of the prisoner. His Honor: I don’t think it necessary. It won’t affect the sentence. I understand he is well reported on. ' Addressing the Court, Mr. Moss said that Mackay was a dairy factory employee, and up to the present had quite a clean record. His age was just a<bout twenty-one, and he was married, not so many years ago, his wife being about the same age. From the monetary point of view the wife had no resources of her own, and was dependent on the earnings of the prisoner. Counsel stressed the plea for leniency which the jury brought in, and said this plea was probably given use to from the fact that the girl was close to sixteen. “I don’t intend to grant probation; it is not a case for probation,” His Honor interjected when counsel was proceeding to mention the Probation Act. Addressing prisoner, His Honor said: “Your counsel has urged you are a married man, but if I were to consider that circumstance I should have to establish a kind of scale of punishment for such cases. No Judge has ever thought of doing that. It is quite right that I should be informed of that, but it leads to the unpleasant reflection in your ease that you had relations with this gir] the moment your wife was away. Quite true, the girl was a very willing party, and possibly may have put temptation in your way. 1 take consideration of these facts and the fact that the jury has recommended you to mercy, though I don’t think that the grounds they offer wil l stand very close scrutiny. I never disregard a recommendation of the kind, however, and you may reckon that it has had the effect of shortening your sentence. In a case like this, where the girl is as old as she is, and should be able to protect herself, I do not think it calls for a very severe sentence, ’but it does call unmistakably for a sentence of imprisonment. If I were to take any other view of it I should be simply setting the statute at defiance. I find myself, therefore, under the necessity of passing a sentence of imprisonment on you. You will 'be imprisoned with hard labor for eight months.”

GUILTY OF FORGERY. A youth, Eric A. Beere, who had pleaded guilty to the charge of forging and uttering a cheque for £l'2 at Hawera last year, came up for sentence. Mr. P. O’Dea appeared on behalf of the accused, and said His Honor had no doubt seen the report of the probation officer, which showed that up till this escapade Beere was quite a decent boy. Counsel read letters from two different persons who were former employers of accused, offering to give him re-employ-ment. Mr. O’Dea said it was hard to explain Beere’s action, and the name forged to the cheque was a fictitious one. His father was employed in the Government service, and had ’been a resident of Stratford for many years. The money had been refunded. His Honor ordered the ' ase to stand down and notified that lie would send for the prisoner when lie had come to a decision.