Harris Must Serve Full

Sentence

A FORMER officer of the Papua- New Guinea Department of Civil Aviation, convicted for theft in December, 1953, and sentenced by the Supreme Court of the Territory to four years’ gaol, will have to serve his whole sentence unless the Commonwealth Executive intervenes.

The Full High Court of Australia decided this recently when it re jected an appeal by Edward Norman Rarris against the severity of his sentence. Harris had confessed to stealing £3,620 from the Aviat Club at Port Moresby.

He was appointed treasurer of the club in 1952. He got into financial difficulties and began taking the club’s money, first in small amounts, and then in large sums to bet on horses.

Members did not want to prosecute and would not accept long-service pay, superannuation or life assur ance which Harris offered as repay ment. But a charge was laid by Government authorities and Harris pleaded guilty.

The High Court ruled that although Harris would probably have received a lighter sentence in an Australian Court, they could not re duce it unless it was established that the trial judge had been un reasonable or unsound in the exercise of his discretion.

if Mr. Jack Turner is back at Nadi, Fiji, as manager of the International Airport. He was in charge there a few years ago, during an important formative period, and then had a spell in New Zealand. He is popular in Fiji, and his return was warmly welcomed. Before World War 11, Mr. Turner was a well known pilot in New Guinea, and a mountain

near the notorious Lamington is named after him. The PIM editor, recently in Fiji, had to an swer many question about NG “old hands”; and Mr. Turner was deeply interested in accounts of progress in the Highlands. In his day, they knew only Chimbu and Mount Hagen. “Where exactly is Goroka, and how big is it?” he asked!