GIRL ABDUCTED

Taranaki Daily News, 12 September 1940, Page 8

GIRL ABDUCTED

By Telegraph—Press Association.

PRISON FOR YOUNG MAN SCHOOL BUS ROMANCE HAPPIEST DAYS OF LIFE

Whakatane, Last Night. Charged with the abduction of a 13-ye,ar-old girl and escape from custody Arthur Mitchell Wray, aged 25, appeared before Mr. E. L. Walton, S.M., at Whakatane to-day. He was sentenced to three months' jail on the first charge and remanded on the second. Wray pleaded guilty. The police said that Wray, formerly a school bus driver, struck up a friendship with one of the children. He sold the business and left the district with the girl, going to Taupo, where he was arrested. He was living with the girl as Mr. and Mrs. Smith. Mr. B. S. Barry said Wray, with the consent of the girl's family, had been going about with her for 12 months. Set up House at Taupo. She suggested to Wray that they should go away together. At Taupo she set up house in a manner which would have done credit to any woman, She said the period was the happiest of her life. Counsel submitted that the hardships Wray suffered during his period at liberty in the bush after his escape from custody would save him a penalty when he appeared in the Supreme Court and asked that the second charge be withdrawn. "Abduction is considered a serious offence and rightly so," said Mr. Walton. "There was no possibility of Wray mistaking the age of the child as she was only 13."