SUPERINTENDENT OF POLICE

Press, Volume LXXXVI, Issue 26221, 19 September 1950, Page 8

SUPERINTENDENT OF POLICE

CHRISTCHURCH POST INSPECTOR A. G. MCHUGH APPOINTED (From Our Parliamentary Reporter.) WELLINGTON, September 18. Inspector A. G. McHugh, of Dunedin. is to be Superintendent in charge ,f the Christchurch police district. His promotion will date from next Wednesday. This was announced by the Minister in charge of Police (Mr W. H. Fortune) to-day. Inspector McHugh was born at Darfield and, after leaving school there, he began work at blacksmithing. He joined the New Zealand Police Force in 1912. and was posted to Auckland as a constable. He spent about 28 years there during which he transferred to the detective branch and was promoted in turn to detective-sergeant and senior-detective. On this latter promotion in 1940 he was transferred to Hamilton. His next transfer was to Wellington as sub-inspector at the wharves, a position he held during the war years. In July, 1947. he was promoted to the rank of inspector and transferred to Dunedin. Mr McHugh was a successful detective in Auckland and was described in a newspaper as “the man who cleaned up the Auckland waterfront of cargopillaging and other evils.” Notable Case Recalled

One of the most notable cases in which he was engaged was the ’’horn *-> ... o r cas<l O f about 30 years ago, in

which a man named Eyre was shot in the head as he lay in bed on a farm near Tuakau. It was luck for the police that Mickey, the horse ridden by Thorn, happened to be shod with shoes that left a distinctive mark and that Detective McHugh, as he then was, had been a blacksmith in his youth and saw the significance of the peculiar marks. Before the evidence could be completed, the hooves oi iduu norses had to be examined—one of the most painstaking researches in the history of the New Zealand Police Force. As a detective-sergeant, Mr McHugh was known as an able prosecutor in the Auckland Courts for a number of years. He has had considerable experience in investigating all classes of crime.

In his youth he was an outstanding athlete in several branches of sport, including boxing, in which he was an amateur heavyweight champion, wrestling, pnd putting the shot. He was a representative Rugby football player and played for Auckland against the Springboks in 1920. M. J. McHugh, who was a member of the AH Black team which toured South Africa in 1949, is a son. Mr T. E. Holmes to Retire Mr T. E. Holmes, the present Superintendent of Police at Christchurch, who is due to go on retiring leave next month, has been on sick leave for some weeks. Mr Holmes, who was born at Troutbeck, Westmorland, England, joined the Royal Artillery when he was 18 and served for three years. He then joined the Liverpool police and during the following four years became prominent as an athlete. In 1908 he was a member of the English tug-of-war team at the Olympic Games. He came to New Zealand in 1911 and joined the Police Force. He was recalled to his regiment in 1914 and returned to New Zealand in 1917. He served in the detective branch at Palmerston North, Wellington, Greymouth, Christchurch, and Dunedin. He returned to Christchurch as chief detective in 1944 and remained in charge of that branch until he succeeded the present Commissioner (Mr J. B. Young) as Superintendent at Christchurch in May of this year.