THE POLICEMAN'S JOB.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 123, 26 May 1932, Page 22

THE POLICEMAN'S JOB.

'UNNECESSARY RESTRICTIONS' HANDICAP IN DETECTIVE WORK. The suggestion that the police were handicapped in dealing with crime l,y the Judges' Rules and tlie findings of the Commission of 1928, following a Hyde Park case, was made by the Chief Constable of Heading, Mr. T. A. Burrows., in an address to the Heading Rotary Club recently. Mr. Burrows said that suspects could not be cross-examined in any way by the police, except to remove any ambiguity in a- statement; yet a barrister in court was quite properly allowed to try to twist a witness in trying to get the truth. Ml". Burrows continued: "Are these ruler, necessary. Have the police consistently overstepped legal limits, since the police was formed 100 years ago ? Because of one case of overstepping the mark, does it mean that the police must be handicapped in their work? Ko one has ever practised third degree in this country by which a suspect has been tortured. "But the present-day criminal is by no means mentally deficient. He ; is a clever man, and you must get another clever man to catch him. "When I have just got on good terms with a suspect I must suddenly -'top, and formally tell him that he need not say anything more unless he wants to, and everything he eaye I must write down in longhand. What chance is there of. catching him-by surprise? Criminal detection must be carried out without regard to etiquette. "Nobody wants to get an innocent man convicted, but it it> a policeman's job to get his man and bring him before the court. " Surely, as long as a constable is fair to his prisoner, that is all that matters.' .