Taupo Police Inquiry

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 29051, 13 November 1959, Page 12

Taupo Police Inquiry

The Commissioner of Police (Mr W. S. Brown) has made an extraordinary defence of holding a departmental inquiry into actions of the police at the lock-up at Taupo when a man died (according to the Coroner’s finding) from asphyxiation and incineration.

The Coroner gave his finding on the cause of death; he was obliged to do no more. In reply to a suggestion by counsel for the dead man’s relatives, the Coroner said the Secretary of Justice would institute further inquiries if he thought them necessary. It is to be hoped that the Secretary of Justice takes this course; if not, the Minister of Justice (MiMason) should certainly instruct him to act. The police inquiry is quite insufficient to serve the public interest. According to a Press Association message, Mr Brown said he would hear the charges against two constables for alleged breaches of police regulations. He said it was competent for him to pass the departmental inquiry over to an outsider, “as was sometimes done “where the actions of a police “officer were of extraordinary “ public interest ”. But he concluded that “such action did “not appear to be warranted “in the present case ”. Where does Mr Brown think the public interest lies? A citizen was asphyxiated and incinerated while locked up in police custody. For the Commissioner to suggest that this is not a matter of most extraordinary public interest must raise a serious doubt in the public mind about any other opinion he may offer on the tragedy. The Commissioner has made a public inquiry by an independent authority more desirable than ever.