THE LIABILITY OF POLICEMEN.

Clutha Leader, Volume XX, Issue 1025, 16 March 1894, Page 3

THE LIABILITY OF POLICEMEN.

I observe that at Napier several horses having been tarred like zebras and their manes and tails cut. Constable Gordon suspected and arrested a ploughman named Hilton for the offence, but the justice of the peace dismissed tha charge. Subsequently Hilton brought an action against the constable, when Mr Justice Richmond gave judgment for the plaintiff L2O and costs, His Honor holding that, unless under exceptional circumstances such as ground for belief that defendant was about to leave the district, arrest for such an offence was unnecessary, and the proceedings should hare been by summons. Now it does seem to me a hard case that a policeman should be mulcted in, for him, such a large sum of money for doing what he considered to be his duty, and acting of course without malice or wrong intention. I think in a case of this sort the authorities should indemnify the constable. No doubt policemen should be very careful in the performance of their duty, and do their best to avoid injuring innocent people, yet I do not think it is well they should be discouraged in the active performance of their duties by the constant apprehension that they are liable to heavy damages if they happen by inadvertence to arrest the wrong person for an offence. A person wronged by the police may have, and should have right of compensation, but I think the Government should pay it unless a con stable has been guilty of flagrant mis conduct or very gross carelessness. Apparently in this c^se the constable

acted in ignorance of the nicety of law between a case for arrest and a case for summons. *