DANGEROUS YOUTHS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 11 June 1938, Page 2

DANGEROUS YOUTHS

SENT TO BORSTAL FOR THREE YEARS. CONVICTED OF ROBBERY WITH VIOLENCE. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) CHRISTCHURCH, June 10. Two youths, both under twenty— Douglas William Barlow and William Hamilton Noonan, stood in the Supreme Court dock today to receive sentence for robbery with violence. “This is a particularly grave crime, one of the gravest,” Mr Justice Northcroft told them. “You may know now, if you did not know before, that you are in danger of a flogging. I have it in mind that English judges have recently ordered a flogging for this offence.”

On Noonan’s behalf. Mr Quigley said that it was an unfortunate lapse on the part of a seventeen-year-old boy. The trouble seemed to have come about through boys congregating and going about in Sn old motor-car and getting drink. “They have been able to get drink with surprising facility,” remarked Mr Quigley. “When arrested they had several bottles of whisky in the car. Boys of such age taking whisky would probably get full of Dutch courage and do things they would not otherwise do.” A tragic family history was related by counsel, Mr Young, on Barlow’s behalf. After a bout of heavy drinking, he said, Barlow’s father had criminally assaulted his mother and had then committed suicide. His father’s brother had also committed suicide and his sister had been confined in a mental hospital. Barlow admittedly had a bad list, he remarked, although he was not yet twenty years of age. There seemed to be a strain of mental weakness in his blood. “I cannot but regard you as dangerous and mischievous youths,” said his Honour, in sentencing both youths to be , confined in a Borstal institution for not more than three years.