POLICE METHODS

Evening Post, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 108, 7 May 1912, Page 8

POLICE METHODS

JUDGE CHAPMAN IN DEFENCE. The methods of the police in obtaining , convictions in cases of breaches of tbe licensing law were under discussion in the Supreme Court to-day. Mr. P. W. Jackson, counsel for accused (Hope) criticised the conduct of the police, which he termed un-Bri-tieh. After Mr. H. H. Ostler (Crown Prosecutor) had addressed /the' jury, his Honour, Mi\ Justice Chapman, said ' it was suggested that the constable went to the premises in question not to detect crime but to create it. "A long time back," his Honour continued, "in our history such things did occasionally occur, and there was a certain amount of scandal over it. The police employed any men 4hey could pick up to try and induce -a sale. The man might go to the house of an innocent woman, and by. means of a story' about a sick wife or child, induce the sale of brandy or whisky or other liquor. .That was scandalous. For more than twenty years that method had been entirely discredited, discouraged, and disused. It was a perfectly legitimate thing, however, for the police to see one of their number to see if a suspected person were willing to commit this particular offence. Indeed, it was the duty of the police, if the sergeant or officer in charge suspected that a person was carrying on a sly grog-selling establishment. It was not correct to call it creating a crime to see if a. man were willing to repeat a crime he was «uspected of having committed before. So long as a perfectly respectable agent was employed, or a member of the force of known respectability, there was no danger to the community. Was there any other way of detecting such offences? His Honour ventured to say that the jury would agree. These observations, his Honour concluded, were due to the police. So far as his opinion was concerned, there wae nothing improper in what the police did in this cace, unless the jury said there was. any impropriety on tho part of any of the officer*).