Clerk Awarded Damages For Wrongful Arrest

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29850, 16 June 1962, Page 5

Clerk Awarded Damages For Wrongful Arrest

(NZ. Press Association)

AUCKLAND, July 14. A Glendowie clerk who claimed in the Supreme Court at Auckland that a milkman who suspected him of stealing milk money wrongly detained and searched him while he was on his way to post a football coupon early in the morning was awarded £9O damages by the jury today.

The clerk. Leo Rawlinson, claimed £4Ol damages for false imprisonment from the milkman. Thomas William McDonald, of Pakuranga. He is also claiming a further £ 100 for assault and unlawful interference with his person. Mr H. M. Wheaton. for Rawlinson, said Rawlinson was claiming the damages as compensation for the humiliation. inconvenience, pain and embarrassment he had suffered. McDonald, represented by Mr P. B. Temm. denied liability for damages. Rawlinson said in evidence that he went out to post a football coupon at 1.35 a.m. after discovering that his wife had forgotten to post it the previous day. His intention was to try to get a lift to the post office so that the letter would be in time for the early morning airmail post to England. About 2 am. he saw McDonald in his milk van and asked for a lift to the city. He claimed that McDonald leaped from his cab. came up to him in a belligerent manner and began to feel his pockets, telling him he had lost a lot of money. McDonald told his companion in the milk van to telephone for the police, Rawlinson said. On finding no money in Rawlinson’s pockets, McDonald began to search the ground, saying that he must have hidden the money in the grass. McDonald prevented him from continuing on his way until a policeman arrived, he said. In the police car he handed the policeman a sealed en-

velope which was found to contain two £1 postal orders, a Is postal order and a football coupon. The police were satisfied and took no further action. He had not received an unqualified apology from McDonald. “My purpose in bringing these proceedings is to clear my name.’’ he added. “I have been branded as a thief —and I am not a thief. “I want to remove the stigma. I am not being vindictive.” McDonald said in evidence that he had been losing a lot of money from milk bottles. He did not believe Rawlinson’s explanation of what he was doing in the street at that time Of the morning because it seemed too farfetched to be true. Letter Unanswered He said Rawlinson gave his consent to being searched and stayed voluntarily until the police arrived. Cross-examined by Mr Wheaton, he said he was now

satisfied that Rawlinson had nothing whatever to do with the theft of the milk money. He agreed that he did not answer a letter from Rawlinson asking for an unqualified apology. Mr Justice W’oodhouse, summing up, told the jury the rights of private citizens to make arrests were hedged about by proper safeguards. A private citizen, if he was to make an arrest without warrant, had to be satisfied a particular crime had been done, satisfied that the person arrested committed the crime, must have had in the eyes of the law reasonable and probable grounds for that belief, and must inform the person arrested of the nature of the charge. There was also an onus on the person making the arrest to prove all these things. “People who embark on this sort of thing must be very sure of their grounds, otherwise life would be rather intolerable for all of us,” said his Honour.