WELLINGTON ARREST

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 29021, 9 October 1959, Page 12

WELLINGTON ARREST

Complaint Lodged With Police

(New Zealand Press Association/ WELLINGTON, October 8.

Actions of police while arresting a man in Wellington last night resulted in a citizen making an official complaint today to the officer in charge of the Wellington police district (Superintendent W. G. Bennett).

The complainant alleged mishandling of the man as he was about to be put into the patrol car, but a senior police officer denied today that the man had been mishandled. The incident occurred while a constable was arresting the man seconds after a window of a wine shop in Vivian street had been broken.

The police officer said the man arrested was under the influence of liquor and was reluctant to walk across the road to the car. As he was being escorted across he attempted to punch one of the constables in the groin, but his action was slow and seen by another constable, who, to ward off the punch, pushed the man The man fell off balance and struck his head on the side of the patrol car. The police officer added that the only injury the man suffered was a small mark on the forehead, and in a statement to the police today the prisoner had expressed his regret at what happened. The officer said there were a number of persons on the opposite side of the street to the patrol car and they could not have seen clearly what happened. He added that a 'departmental inquiry was proceeding into the complaint.

A prisoner in the Lewellen, Nebraska, gaol escaped by squirting pressurised shaving cream in the eyes of a sheriff.