RAZOR SLASHER GETS GAOL

Taranaki Daily News, 10 April 1928, Page 7

RAZOR SLASHER GETS GAOL

MAXIMUM SENTENCE. ‘ WISH I COULD GIVE HIM TEN.” Sydney, March 23. A salutary lesson was administered to iho first razor slasher to come before a jury this week, when Gordon Barr, found guilty of disfiguring the face of a pretty woman, was given the maximum sentence—five years’ penal servitude. “I wish I could give you teu years,” was the judge’s remark.

The trial was the outcome of an incident on New Year’s morning when Betty Carslake, shielding a wouwa who had been living with Barr, but who had been knocked about by the man and left him, opened the door to a knock aud found Barr at the door.

He forced his way into the flat and demanded to see the woman who had been living with him. In an effort to save her friend, Betty Carslake attempted to put Barr out of the place. But hs produced a razor and made a savage slash at her face, opening up the cheek from the left eye to the mouth. Many stitches were necessary to close the found, and the mark left has disfigured the woman’s face for life.

Giving evidence against Barr, a detective described him as of a low, hideous character, and linked his name with those of women of low repute, on whom, it was stated, he battened.

Ono had divorced him, another had lived with him and kicked him out, and he had then married another young woman, and lived on her immoral earnings. Judge Curiewis said that such men married women of that stamp for only one purpose, and described Barr as one of the most poisonous and loathsome creatures that existed on the face, of the earth.

When the jury first returned it added a recommendation for mercy. The judge was dumbfounded.

He demanded the grounds for such a recommendation, and when, after a further retirement, the foreman announced that the prisoner, in their estimation, had received provocation, the judge declared that such was not the case, nor was there any evidence to show anything of the sort. He said that Barr went, armed witn a razor, to injure the victim. She had her face stitched, and was marked 10.life.

And when he saw that tho maximum penalty was five years under the section of the charge, he expressed keen regret that he could not pass sentence of ten years’ penal servitude. Amazing scenes occurred when the verdict was announced. Women shrieked, struggled and screamed, and had to be ejected by the police, while Barrs wife hurled defiance at the detective as he stood in the box. Barr wept in the dock, MAGISTRATE’S PROMISE. Air. Camphin, S.AI., set a precedent for magistrates ' when, at Newtow.’ Court, the same day that Bair was given five years, ho announced that fie would treat all crimes committed by persons in possession of razors and revolvers as aggravated offences, and impose severe penalties. Ho made a start in the case of a young man named Samuel Barker (21), a foilmonger, who, charged with assaulting a constable, admitted having bad two razors in his pocket at the time. “In view of the conditions now existing in Sydney, I consider it my duty to impose an exemplary penalty,” said the magistrate, in sentencing Barker to six months' gaol on the assault charge. Evidence was to the effect that Barker had been arrested at a local picture theatre, where he was using filthy and threatening language. On tho way to the station he was trying to get his hand into a side pocket, in which the razors were found later. Barker, said they were for a barber. He had a long list of convictions, including many for assaulting the police.