OFFENCES AGAINST GIRL

Wairarapa Times-Age, 18 October 1941, Page 7

OFFENCES AGAINST GIRL

LONG TERM OF PRISON IMPOSED.

COMMENT ON ABOLITION OF FLOGGING.

(By Telegraph—Press Association.) HAMILTON, October 17.

“That there was a vile offence committed upon a young girl of 11 years admits of not a vestige of doubt,” said the Chief Justice, Sir Michael Myers, in the Supreme Court, Hamilton, today when sentencing James O’Keefe, aged 42, to 10 years’ imprisonment with hard labour on charges of serious offences against a young girl. “One sometimes hears it said that certainty of conviction in a proper case is in itself a sufficient deterrent to persons minded to commit crime,” said his Honour. “That may be correct up to a point, but the truth is, I believe, that the real deterrent is not merely certainty of conviction but certainty, or at least probability, of conviction plus the fear of punishment, and when I say fear of punishment I include fear of the kind of punishment that may be imposed. “Though neither the statement that corporal punishment has been a powerful deterrent nor denial of that statement is in the nature of things capable of proof, it certainly seems more reasonable, from one’s knowledge and experience of human nature, to think that the fear of corporal punishment in the case of sexual offences, and certain other offences, was a potent deterrent.

“Personally I always hated the thought of having to order a flogging, and during my 12| years on the Bench I have done so in only one very bad case of sexual offence upon a girl of very tender years. But for the abolition of corporal punishment, and notwithstanding distaste in having to impose it, I should have had very seriously to consider that form of punishment in the case of the prisoner.