DEFIED POLICE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 161, 9 July 1940, Page 5

DEFIED POLICE.

N.S.W. BUSINESS GIRL. THREE HOURS IN GAOL . "AN AFFALUKG PLACE." (Special—Bj- Air Mail.) i SYDXEY, July 3. "X did not know that such appalling places as the lock-up at Central Police Station existed in this country."' Miss Adele Hamilton, 20-year-old Sydney business woman, said this after three hours in gaol last Wednesday. Miss Hamilton had said that rather than pay a traflic fine of £ 1 she' would go to gaol for three days. She claimed that she had been victimised by the police. Mr. Goldie, S.M., gave lie.r three weeks to think it over, and the time was up last Tuesday. '• "On Wednesday, at 5 p.m., the police called for me and took me to Eegent Street," Miss Hamilton said. "They couldn't have been nicer, and seemed ashamed of their job. They even offered to pay my fine. Then they took me to Central, where I was locked up. They gave me three blankets to cover me on a hard board bed, but I got one whiff of them and knew that I would spend my firet night in gaol sitting up. They put me in among drunks and worse. I heard some terrible things. In addition to being «o dirty as to be unusable, the blankets were infested with vermin.

"At S. p.m. someone From the firm came along and paid the fine, and I wn* released. . I was very glad to get out, but I would have done the three days, although:l coul.l have paid the fine."2o, times myself if I had wanted to. It seems very wrong to me that a person who defaults in paying a fine for a civil offence should be treated like a criminal. There should be some place of detention for respectable people." The police later denied Miss Hamilton's allegations. ... i

Girl Insists on Arrest On June 4 Miss Hamilton was fined £1, iu default three days, for having refused to supply information to the police. They had asked her who had been driving her car when it was found parked in a street on February 23. She said many people used her ear for business purposes and she could not remember who had been driving it that day. She alleged that she was being persecuted because she had annoyed the police by persistent inquiries, about "no parking" signs in a street used for parking at night.by theatre patrons. She maintained that the sign said nothing about not parking after 6 p.m., but that in spite of this the police used to go round regularly every" night and make easy monej- by booking up all the cars.

When Hiss Hamilton was fined the £1 she announced that she would go to but the embarrassed magistrate, Mr. Goldie, staved it off by insisting on giving her 21 days in which to pay. Yesterday the 21 davs were up. After the Traffic Court sitting concluded Miss Hamilton tried to find Mr. Goldie, and finally ran him down just as he was congratulating himself that he was getting away. Mr. Goldie again got rid of her by telling her to sec the chamber magistrate, from whom she extracted a promise that a warrant for her arrest would be issued.