Photographs Did Not Help Police

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 70, 23 March 1940, Page 4 (Supplement)

Photographs Did Not Help Police

IN smashing the legend of Dartmoor Prison—that convicts do not escape and live—Charles Watson (alias Sparks) 'and Bill Nolan, London bandits, have revived a controversy about official photographs of convicted persons. The two men still at liberty (January 22) after 10 days had screwed up their faces when they faced the prison camera. From seeing tlie photographs the ordinary man in the street would have little chance of helping to catch the prisoners, who arc costing the couutry £vjoo in police expenditure every day they arc free. There is a large body of opinion in English police circles which thinks that _ ■ ' i : ] ;

the present "kid-glove" regulations about taking a prisoner's fingerprints and photographs should bo abolished. At present an accused man can refuse to have his fingerprints taken at the police station. By---John Drummond With such men the police apply for remands in custody. Should a prisoner still refuse to face the camera or submit to finger-printing in his remand prison, a magistrate must sign a request form which is handed to tho governor of the gaol. The prisoner can then be forced to face the camera, but it is a question of whose patience is exhausted first— the ollicial photographer's or the grimacing prisoner's.