Police Blackened Faces

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30819, 3 August 1965, Page 3

Police Blackened Faces

(N.Z. Press Association) WELLINGTON, August 2.

Some of a police party which had waited outside a house in Karori last April wore boiler suits and had their faces blackened, a woman constable said in the Supreme Court today.

She was testifying against Florence May Radcliffe, aged 61, a widow, Frederick William Fallon Ongley, aged 52, an accountant, and a 17-year-old girl whose name was suppressed in an interim order by Mr Justice McGregor. The three are jointly

charged with conspiring unlawfully to use an instrument with intent to procure a miscarriage and with attempting unlawfully to use an instrument with intent to procure a miscarriage. Mr J. H C. Larsen appears for the Crown, Mr R. Stacey, with him Mr D. F. P. Stevenson, for Radcliffe, Mr C. H. Arndt for Ongley, and Mr J. D. Dalgety for the girl. Jilian Craig, the woman constable, said she had been present in the house when a police party entered. Questioned by defence counsel, she said she presumed the policemen had their faces blackened to keep them hidden in the dark. Earlier, Miss Craig testified she met the girl on April 22 in a city street, discussed abor-

■ tion and later that day met ; Ongley. The girl said she had • telephoned “Flo.” ; In the evening she and the girl and Ongley went to a city i flat. The girl left the room at one stage and then returned saying the appointment was for 9.10 p.m. Miss Craig said she was later driven to Karori with Ongley who had pointed out a house to her. She and Ongley had entered the gate and were waved into the house by Radcliffe. Miss Craig said she told Radcliffe she was a maternity nurse. At the end of the conversation detectives had entered the house. Cross-examined by Mr Stacey, Miss Craig said about 10 persons were in the police party. She agreed there could have been 15. She also agreed that two or more of the policemen were wearing blue denims or boiler suits and had their faces “blackened with some kind of substance.” Mr Stacey: Do you know why in April, 1965, these policemen had their faces blackened? Craig: I didn’t know they had been blackened till I saw them, but I presumed it was to keep them hidden out in the dark. The case will continue tomorrow.