Chaplains Urge A Police Inquiry

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32209, 30 January 1970, Page 14

Chaplains Urge A Police Inquiry

(New Zealand Press Association) AUCKLAND, January 29. A group of New Zealand university chaplains today called for a public inquiry into allegations against the police during the visit of the American Vice-President (Mr Agnew). The eight chaplains—most of the university chaplains in New Zealand—issued a statement after holding an informal meeting in Auckland.

The chaplains are: The Rev. Dr Phyllis Guthardt, Waikato University; the Rev. J. Elvidge, Canterbury University; the Rev. R.

McCullough, and the Rev. Fathers E. O’Sullivan and N. Darragh, Auckland University; and the Revs. P. Jennings and P. Stewart, and the Rev. Father M. Murphy, Victoria University, Wellington. Their statement said that, if the allegations of police brutality were false, the police could only gain by such an inqury. If they were true, action must be taken in the interests of the general public. “Refusal to hold a public inquiry is likely to arouse suspicion that there is something to hide, and to increase the danger of violence in the future,” said the chaplains.

They said they also believed that, for the guidance of both police and demonstrators, their rights of the Sew Zeland citizen to express his dissent should be further defined and made known.