CONVICT’S APPEAL

Wairarapa Times-Age, 20 June 1938, Page 8

CONVICT’S APPEAL

WANTS PERIOD AT LARGE COUNTED IN SENTENCE QUESTION FOR THE COURT By Telegraph.—Press Association. WELLINGTON, This Day. The interesting question of whether or not the period during which an escaped prisoner is at liberty should be counted as part of the sentence he is serving is occupying the attention of the Appeal Court today. The case is that of Thomas William Wilson, convict, of Auckland, who has taken out an originating summons questioning the effect of a prisoner's escape on the sentence he is serving. Wilson was sentenced on June 18, 1931, by Mr Justice Kennedy to four years’ imprisonment with hard labour, to be followed by a year’s reformative detention, for assault and doing actually bodily harm, and three years, with hard labour, for assault with intent to rob, the sentences to be concurrent. In the same month Wilson was transferred to the Auckland Prison to serve his sentence, but on December 16, 1931, he was placed in the Auckland Hospital for medical attention. Four days later he escaped, and caught the first boat for America. For offences in the United States, he was sentenced to an indeterminate sentence of from one to fifteen years’ imprisonment, and a deportation order was made at Los Angeles on March 31, 1936. On April 17, 1936, Wilson was rearrested on the Mariposa, at Auckland, and in the following month was sentenced to twelve months’ imprisonment for escaping from custody, the sentence to run cumulatively upon the sentence imposed in June, 1931. The originating summons asks whether the sentences imposed on June 18, 1931, should be deemed to include the period of time during which Wilson was at large. Mr Treadwell, for the prisoner, said the real question was whether the sentence was suspended during the period of the escape, or whether it continued to run, so that the prisoner got the benefit of the period during which he was at liberty. He submitted that escaping from custody was a separate offence, and had never been regarded at common law or in a statute as affecting in any way the original sentence. The law looked to the gaoler alone to see that the sentence was carried out, and regarded any escape as a breach of discipline only, and dealt with it on that basis. The case is proceeding.