POLICE CLAIM PRIVILEGE

Press, Volume LXXII, Issue 21867, 21 August 1936, Page 10

POLICE CLAIM PRIVILEGE

MAGISTRATE UPHOLDS REQUEST STATEMENTS NOT TO BE USED IN CIVIL ACTION

A claim that they should be granted privilege and not be forced to produce the statements made by

a driver who was involved in an accident, and also a plan of the acr cident signed by one of the parties, was made during the hearing of a civil claim for damages arising out

of the accident in the Magistrate’s Court yesterday afternoon. Dr. A, L. Haslam, appearing for the plaintiff, asked that the plan and statements should be produced, but the

application of privilege was‘made to the magistrate, Mr F. F. Reid, S.M., who upheld it.

He said that he did not want to make a general ruling on the matter, but he felt that if statements made to the police were to be allowed as evidence in civil suits the frankness; now generally found in such documents would largely disappear, It could not be expected that persons involved in accidents would speak so readily if they knew that what they said to the police was liable to be used against them in a civil claim, for damages.