Report Exonerates U.K. Police

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30847, 4 September 1965, Page 17

Report Exonerates U.K. Police

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright) LONDON, Sept. 3. Britain’s police system was officially exonerated yesterday in a report on the Challenor case.

Detective-Sergeant Harold Challenor, a former war hero who fought crime in the seamy Soho area, became mentally ill and was said to have planted evidence on innocent people and extracted confessions by force. The case focused attention here on the question of whether Britain’s 52,000 police were losing their reputation for non-violence. Challenor has been in a mental home since being found unfit to plead on charges of planting bricks on people during demonstrations against the visit to London in July 1963 of Queen Frederika of Greece.

The Government ordered an

inquiry headed by a judge, Mr Arthur E. James, whose 100,000-word report was published today. It said there had been suggestions that the atmosphere at London’s West End central police station where Challenor was based—between the vicefilled streets of Soho and the rich Mayfair area—allowed him to use violence and plant

evidence without being noticed. Mr James rejected this suggestion, and said he concluded nobody could justly be criticised for the fact that Challenor remained on duty at a time when he was suffering from mental illness. Nobody was to blame for the four factors which allowed this to happen. Four Factors The factors were that his “loyal, devoted wife” did not tell his superior officers of such incidents as his refusal to travel through Italy on holi-

day for fear of agents waiting to kill him, or his claims that other agents were trying to get to know his face; the difficulty of diagnosing his particular illness, paranoid schizophrenia, the absence of

evidence to support medical authority needed to remove an officer from duty; and the existence of possible causes for abnormal behaviour other than mental illness. Everyone at Challenor’s station was working long hours, and his behaviour was understandably

attributed to overstrain and tiredness. Mr James said evidence had been given him of the criminal world’s dislike and desire to get rid of Challenor. Challenor, aged 43, was de-

scribed in police reports as “fearless in his dealings with criminals” and had received 18 commendations. The police, who have been waiting for months to see if the report on his case would condemn or congratulate them, are expected to receive it with relief and satisfaction.