The man who wasn't hanged

When Pipi Katene brutally bludgeoned a man to death in 1941, he was eligible for the death penalty.
But he wasn’t hanged as his conviction came just one month after capital punishment was repealed.
Katene was the first man to benefit from a change in Government and social policy when the first Labour government was elected in 1935.
The election had already been delayed for a year because of the Great Depression. Disillusioned voters wanted something new. Nothing the old Government had done was shifting the economy forward.
It helped that Michael Joseph Savage took over as leader before the election.
Capital punishment was abolished in 1941 (with the exceptions being treason and piracy) and by the time Katene was convicted in October 1941 - the new law was a month old.
Arthur Harding Parkinson was a shopkeeper in Waitotara, in South Taranaki. In the early hours of August 5, 1941 he was found badly injured with a mallet and an axe lying nearby. He was 78.
The store’s safe was open and the money gone.
Katene knew Parkinson, knew when he was going to be in the shop alone and knew he kept money in the safe.
He lay in wait outside the store that night then went in and asked for cigarettes. When Parkinson turned his back, Katene hit him on the head with a piece of wood. After Parkinson fell to the floor, he hit him several more times.
He dragged him into the back then used an axe to make sure he was dead.
Katene took the keys from Parkinson’s body and opened the safe.
He was arrested in Patea a day later with a lot of money.
He told the police he had not worked for several months and had been getting a social security benefit.
It took the jury 43 minutes to find him guilty and instead of the hangman’s noose, he was sentenced to 10 years hard labour.
Parkinson was born in 1862 in Rangitikei to Charles and Jane Eleanor who had come from England.
His first wife Maria Margaret Dunn - who he married in 1884 - died 1886, not long after the birth of their daughter.
In 1901 he remarried to Mary Laing with whom he had a son.
Parkinson was buried in the Hawera Cemetery with his first wife.