Detective sent for trial on four theft charges

Press, 3 December 1985, Page 6

Detective sent for trial on four theft charges

A Christchurch detective, now suspended from police duties, was yesterday committed to the District Court for trial on four charges of theft as a servant, totalling $2774.

The defendant, Mayne William Manson, aged 37, who has served 13 years in the police force and was a detective in the vice squad, was alleged to have kept for his own use money which had been confiscated during Klice investigations of okmaking and drug offences. The .money subsequently was the subject of forfeiture orders to the Crown, and was to have been paid into the Public Account.

After a preliminary hearing in the District Court yesterday, Mrs C. M. Holmes and Mr J. W. Taylor, Justices of the Peace, committed Manson to the District Court for trial by jury on the four charges. They remanded him to December 13 pending a date for his trial.

Bail of $2OOO in his own recognisance, and with a surety of $lOOO, was granted. The justices discontinued a suppression order on the defendant’s name.

The charges alleged that, on four occasions between May, 1983, and July, 1984, Manson stole sums of money belonging to the New Zealand Government, and which had been in his pos-

session as a police officer.

The amounts concerned were $2OO, $260, $124, and $2190. Written statements of evidence of 31 prosecution witnesses were tendered at the hearing, by consent of defence counsel, Mr J. N. Hampton, without the witnesses having to attend the Court.

Mr Hampton said it was acknowledged that, considering the evidence, there was a case for the charges to proceed to trial. Manson elected trial by jury on the four charges.

Portions of the evidence of Chief Inspector R. G. McMeeking, who interviewed Manson about the alleged thefts, and of a written statement made by Manson, were objected to by Mr Hampton on grounds which he specified. Interim suppression of these passages was directed. Continued interim suppression of the defendant’s name had been sought by Mr Hampton but was opposed by Mr C. A. McVeigh, who prosecuted for the police. He said that he had been instructed to take “this unusual step” in opposing suppression, because if suppression was continued it would reflect on all members of the police, in the public mind. Mr Hampton, seeking continued interim suppression, said suppression of name

had been granted by District Court judges at Manson’s previous appearances and the circumstances on which they had granted this still obtained. Manson had no previous record, and there had been no disciplinary matters against him in his police service. Mr Hampton said various medical reports had been produced in relation to the defendant. Manson had been suspended from the police and thus no blame would be attached, in the minds of the public, on other serving police members.

Police evidence was that the sum of $2190 involved in one charge had been money found in a cistern during a police drugs raid on a house. Other sums related to bookmaking activities.

Court orders were duly made for forfeiture of the sums to the Crown, to be paid into the Public Account.

Investigations began after Chief Inspector McMeeking had noticed that he had not received back from Manson a file on a drug offender. The file had been given to Manson about nine months before, with a direction to complete some unfinished matters, including property disposal in respect of a sum of $2190.

Lanson was to have paid this into the Public Account following the Court order

for forfeiture which made it Crown or Government property. Manson told Mr McMeeking that the file had been fixed up some time ago and he had paid the money to a girl in th§ police district office.

An audit check of receipt books in the police office accounts section showed no record of a payment of $2190 by Manson to the Public Account.

Mr McMeeking referred to further questioning of, and written statements made by Manson. He then detailed his further investigations of file records, mostly relating to bookmaking prosecutions.

He said he found apparent discrepancies in three of these files in regard to forfeited moneys. A police imprest clerk said her checking of receipt books for the period concerned showed that at no stage did Manson hand her personally a form concerning the payment of $2190 of forfeited money into the Public Account. She would have remembered such a large sum if Manson had handed it to her.

Another clerk said that there was nothing in the files showing payments made to her in regard to the smaller sums of forfeited money.