FOUR YEARS’ GAOL

Wairarapa Times-Age, 26 July 1939, Page 6

FOUR YEARS’ GAOL

MAORI FOUND GUILTY OF MANSLAUGHTER DEATH OF YOUNG MARRIED WOMAN. WILD DRIVING THROUGH TOWNSHIP. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) AUCKLAND. This Day. “His conduct resulted in the death of a young married woman on the threshold of life, and has left her two children motherless,” said Mr Justice Fair, in the Supreme Court, sentencing to four years’ imprisonment William Pera Paki, a Macri found guilty of the manslaughter of Mrs Annie Evelyn Marsh, at Okaihau, as a result of reckless motoring and a collision with a motor-car driven by Mrs Marsh. Mr Noble pleaded Paki’s youth. He was aged 25 and had not the sense of responsibility that might be expected of a white man. He had conceived the mad idea that by driving a car at great speed pas’jt the house where his wife was, he might cause his wife to become frightened for her little boy’s safety, and agree to live with him again. The' prisoner could only throw himself on the Court’s mercy for the terrible result of his recklessness.

Mr Justice said the jury had brought in the only verdict open to them on the •vidence in finding the prisoner guilty . f manslaughter. The evidence showed that he drove four times through he township of Okaihau at a speed exceeding seventy miles an hour, .hewing a criminal disregard, not only .or the life of his own son, who was in ■he car, but for the lives of persons on ’he roadway. His recklessness was not the result of a sudden impulse, but was deliberate and wilful, as indicated by the fact that he tried to borrow two separate cars before he took the one he did. “I realise that he is a young man and that members of the Maori race cannot be expected to exercise the same judgment in controlling themselves as the pakeha.” said his Honour, “but after considering these factors the offence remains a verj> bad one and an exemplary sentence must be imposed. Paki was sentenced to four years’ imprisonment for manslaughter, eighteen months’ imprisonment for causing bodily harm to his son, and for reckless driving and six months for attempted suicide, the sentences to be concurrent.