PROBATION GRANTED

Waikato Times, Volume 122, Issue 20497, 13 May 1938, Page 8

PROBATION GRANTED

MAORI MARRIAGE CASE PARTIES TO KEEP • APART Remanded for sentence upon being found guilty with a strong recommendation to mercy on a charge of unlawful carnal knowledge of a Maori girl, George Eketone (35). Maori labourer, of Te Kauri, near Kawhia (Mr J. F. Strang) was to-day admitted by the Chief Justice, Sir Michael Myers, in the Supreme Court, Hamilton, to two years’ probation. In addition to the statutory conditions. probation was granted subject to the fulfilment of three special conditions. Prisoner was not to associate with the gtrl during the period of probation. He was also to leave the locality where the girl lived and remain at such a distance as would render association between the parties impossible, such distance to be fixed by the Probation Officer, and he was not to return to the locality where the girl was living during the period of probation without the prior consent of the * Probation Officer. Prisoner was also ordered to pay the costs of the prosecution over a period to be fixed by the Probation Officer. Care of the Girl Mr Strang intimated that he had been in touch with the Child Welfare Department in Hamilton and with Sister Nicholls, the Hamilton Methodist missioner to the. Maoris. The solution that had been presented to him was that the missioner should take care of the girl for a week or two, with a view to having her placed in a home for native girls. Regarding the prisoner, counsel said he (prisoner) had proposed to try and get work on the projected railway construction work between Pokeno and Thames. Indeed, counsel considered that prisoner could get work anywhere in the North Island, if necessary. Mr H. T. Gillies, for the Crowji, suggested that a simple solution might be to forbit. prisoners to come nearer his home than the city of Auckland. This would compel him to find work in North Auckland. No Flouting of Law “ I will be no party to any arrangement or sentence involving the resumption of relations between the parties,” said His Honour. “ I shall not have them living in the same place or the same neighbourhood. If that is allowed the Maoris, in the neighbood at least, will think they can flout the law and that is an idea which must not get into the heads of any section of the community, Maori or pakeha.” “ My reason for admitting you !o probation is mainly that you seem to have had this girl wished on ’ to you by her parents, who acted very wrongly in so doing,” said His Honour, to prisoner, when entering judgment. “ Maoris must understand what the law is and that they cannot flout U without punishment.”