POLICE WERE TOO SHREWD

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 280, 26 November 1938, Page 9 (Supplement)

POLICE WERE TOO SHREWD

CONCEALED cine cameras and microphones are being used by the police of Chesterfield, England, in a clean-up as thorough as any ever undertaken anywhere.

With the aid of these unseen "eyes" and "ears" the authorities obtained irrefutable evidence that brought many a law-breaker to book.

Charges formerly difficult to prove were backed up by pictures of the accused person's movements and verbatim reports of his words. In the face of such evidence many a carefullyprepared alibi defence broke down.

An electrician walked, into a public building with a ladder and some wire. He was challenged, asked what he was doing. "Seeing to the light," he replied. That "workman" was a detective, and to the light he fixed a microphone no bigger than a shilling-piece. Then from a house 50 yards away he and a colleague listened-in to a chat that proved their case.

It waa useless for the suspect to protest his innocence, for there were his own words in black and white—words that sent him to prison for six months.

Chesterfield police, faced with unusual problems, found science the only way to combat the wrongdoer.

Sneak thieves, petty criminals and street bookmakers —they knew most of them and could arrest them, but proving the charges was another matter.

So well did Chesterfield's lawbreakers hang together that, when one of their number was caught, the others would rally to his aid, ready to swear an alibi.

Then P.C. Saunders, of the local police, had a bright idea. "If we can't convict 'em, we'll 'shoot' 'em," he declared.

Privileged to sit in at a demonstration of the films, I found them funnier than slapstick comedies.

From a slit in a curtained window a detective has his camera trained on the scene he wants to take, and the film

Opens with a view of high-railed stairs leading to the back-door of a betting house.

A bulky man climbs the stairs with heavy tread, lookß round guiltily—and darts inside. An old man, shirt-sleeved and grey-haired, leans on the rail, and appears to be wrestling with temptation. His lined face has a look of calm virtue as he retraces his steps. Then he hesitates, turns and goes up the stairs at a run.

On these stairs the whole comedy of life is enacted. There is much scratching of heads, counting of money, and consulting of betting slips—all faithfully recorded by the camera.

The police arrested the frequenters of the betting house. At the trial the accused were grinning and confident, tlieir alibis well supported.

Then, suddenly, the Court was darkened, and they saw themselves flickering on the screen . . . Most of the men realised the game was up. They withdrew their pleas of "not guilty."