nterest in the training and care of their
children than they might otherwise have taken; it caused some heads of
schools to arrange for sex instruction; and it also resulted in a public
demand that something should be done to bring about a better state of
morality in the community.

Following hard upon the newspaper reports of these cases in the Hutt
Valley there was the news that two girls, each aged about 16 years had
been arrested in Christchurch on a charge of murdering the mother of
one of them. It soon became widely known (and this fact was established
at their subsequent trial) that these girls were abnormally homosexual
in behaviour.

There were also published in the press extracts from the annual report
of the Justice Department to the effect that sexual crime in New Zealand
was, per head of population, half as much again as the sexual crime in
England and Wales. The reasons why the Committee does not accept this
statement at its face value are stated later under Section IV (2).

=(2) Press Reports from Overseas=

In view of the fact that the happenings in the Hutt Valley were reported
in all New Zealand newspapers, and by many newspapers in Australia and
Great Britain, the Committee points out that the increase of sexual
delinquency is not confined to any one district or any one country.

It cannot be too strongly asserted that the great majority of the young
people of the Hutt Valley are as healthy-minded and as well behaved as
those in other districts, whether in New Zealand or elsewhere. It just
happened that, through the voluntary confession of one girl in Petone,
many cases were immediately brought to the knowledge of the police.

In the absence of comparable statistics from other countries, the
Committee can merely quote from some of the reports received in New
Zealand at about the same time that the Hutt Valley cases were reported.

(_a_) _England_

In Monmouthshire last year there was an increase of 88 per cent
in sexual offences. The biggest increases recorded were for
indecent assault on females--132 in 1953, compared with 75 in
1952--and for offences against girls under 16 years of age. In
his annual report the Chief Constable states that this shocking
record is a further indication of the general lowering of moral
standards ...--_The "Police Review" (London), 19 February 1954._

(_b_) _New South Wales_

POLICE UNCOVER WILD TEENAGE SEX ORGIES