FREE ADVICE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 125, 28 May 1932, Page 3 (Supplement)

FREE ADVICE.

BRITAIN'S CRIME WAVE.

EXPERT'S SUGGESTIONS.

SWEEPING MEASURES PROPOSED,

Sweeping measures for dealing with the increasing menace of motor bandits and the numoer of unsolved murder mysteries in Britain have been advanced by ex-Chiei' Constable Wensley, of Scotland Yard. Ih an exclusive interview with the "Sunday Chronicle" he recommended: More freedom for the police; ban on professional criminals holding motor licenses; the enlisting of civilian aid in the war aga'.n.st crooks; compulsory locks on motor cars which are left standing unattended; the fortifying of premises such as jewellers' shops containing valuable property. No Master-Mind. Mr. Wensley characterised as absurd the suggestion that there is a master-mind of crime at work co-ordinating and directing the operations of the bandits.

"Nothing succeeds like success, and it is this fact more than anything else which is responsible for the increase in this form of crime," he said. "These bandits have been able to carry out their daring raids and get away with valuable property. "Other criminals, seeing how easy it looks, are forsaking older forms of crime and trying their hand at the same method. That is why there is a sudden increase ol motor bandits. There is no mysterious criminal organisation at work. These men are simply copying each other, that is all.

"Unquestionably the motor bandit form of crime was started by the professional criminal. Now they are being quickly followed by young novices in crime. The difficulty in combating this form of crime from the police point of view is the excessive mobility of the raiders. No one knows where next they are going to make a swoop." How Public Can Help. Mr. Wensley suggested that the public could help considerably in defeating the motor-raiders. Witnesses of smash-and-grab raids, ho said, should take careful descriptions of the bandits' car and the men insicle it, endeavour to impede the raiders' get-away, block their progress with motor cars or anything that is handy, cive swift information to the police. Mr. Wensley added that one thing which would check the activities of motorbandits more effectively than anything else would be to prohibit every criminal who had ever used a car to commit a crime from holding a license.