CROOKS’ TERROR

Evening Star, Issue 20989, 31 December 1931, Page 7

CROOKS’ TERROR

YARD'S NEW CHIEF SPLENDID RECORD From the House of Commons Prime Ministers have gone from off golden pedestals; financial overlords of Throgmorton street, from glorying peaks of passing fame, have toppled into obscurity ; heroes of the Royal Army and Navy have been dismissed, but there is one body of Britishers that seems destined to carry on for ever—they are the gentlemen attached to the Criminal Investigation Department and the Special Branch of Scotland Yard, writes Padruic King, in the ‘ San Francisco Chronicle.’ For the average Briton Scotland Yard and its work is a perennial institution. Thus, shifts in police personnel are of little moment to him. But for the men and women engaged in the dubious pastime of outwitting the law and playing the game of international espionage changes in the Criminal Investigation Department and the Special Branch of the great English police organisation are always matters of vital import. This explains why the appointment of Lord Hugh Montague Trenchard as Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police of London has created such a stir in the spy jungles and the criminal lairs throughout the world. The Home Secretary has appointed a Chief of Police whose name will soon resound through the underworld like the growl of a man-eating tiger. A FIGHTER. There can bo.no mistaking the fact that Scotland Yard has now a commander who, while not a policeman, will carry the fight to the criminal elements of the British Isles. He is one of the greatest fighting men that ever graced the ranks of the British Army, and known far and wide throughout the Empire as hard a man as was ever born, though respected because of his for unswerving fairness and justice. Since 1927 he has been Marshal of the Royal Air Forces, and served with distinction through the World War, being seriously wounded and the subject of many dispatches for bravery while under fire. He is undoubtedly one of the greatest figures that the conflict of 1914-18 produced. He is really the man who endowed the British Air Service with the spirit of the offensive. The complete mastery of the air which Haig’s forces enjoyed throughout the Somme fighting was exclusively Trenchard’s achievement. Trenchard is one of the strong, but not silent, men. He is thirty-five now, stringy and sinewy, and tanned by an outdoor life, most of which, since 1893 anyhow, has been spent in army barracks throughout the British Empire. He is a fighting soldier, and has as fine a flow of language on occasion as any many that ever graduated from the British Army. FEARED. For Americans he might well ho described as a combination of General

Smedley Butler and the late Admiral Robley D. Evans, flavoured with a dash of the redoubtable Sergeant York. As a result of the appointment of Lord Trenchard, whose pay henceforth will be £3,000 a year, there will be but few changes amongst the senior officers of the Yard, for Chief Constable J. H. Ashley will remain as head of the Criminal-Investigation Department, and the Special Branch will probably continue under the supervision of Sir Trevor Bingham, the present Deputy Commissioner. Leaders of the underworld—from Marseilles to Rio, and from Now Orleans to Tokio—are not, as a rule, interested in the Commissionership, in that they regard it as a purely administrative office, concerned chiefly with the general control of London’s 33,000 police. Their concern has ever been with the head of the Criminal Investigation Department and the Special Branch, because they are the individuals who take such an active hand in the technical processes which result in apprehensions, convictions, and gaolings or executions. When Lord Byn-g • was recently retired the underworld .was duped into the belief that some political favourite might be handed the Commissionership of the Metropolitan Police, few imagining that such a man as Lord Trenchard would be tendered the post, much less accept it. The rank and file of the'Yardj from the humblest constable who parades a beat along Waterloo road to the mightiest of the“ wise men ” in the offices at Old Jewry, are pleased with the appointment, because of the maffis ingrained honesty and his fighting spirit. NO SHERLOCK HOLMES. As a result of the: appointment, the underworld now knows that Chief Constable J. H. Ashley will retain control of the C.1.D., and Sir Trevor Bigham will also continue as chief of the Special Branch. These two men, through scientific and laboratory work in crime detection, have on more than one occasion upset the calm of the underworld and spy jungles. The labours of those attached to the Special Branch—the English do not like the term “Secret Service”—have been so outstanding in the way of definite results that its attaches are feared in every large city of Europe. Since his appointment' Lord Trenchard has announced that not only would he look after the tasks of the Commissionership, but would also devote much of his time and energies to the C.I.D. and the Special Branch. Not in its long history has the yard had at its helm such a formidable trio as Lord Trenchard, Sir Trevor Bigham, and Chief Constable J. H. Ashley, men who give no quarter—and expect none —they’re all fighters. Around the activities of the gentlemen working under the direction of the C.1.D., and of the individuals attached to the counter-espionage forces operating from a small bare office high up under the roof of Scotland Yard, the writer of sensational fiction and the mechanism of cinema plots have thrown an aura of mystery and romance, but, withal, their work is only that of policemen—policemen from whose eyes nothing escapes. Scotland Yard l produces no miracle men. The magic of Sherlock Holmes and Arseno Lupin are not in its repertory. _ Just good, solid, day-by-day plugging on the trail of Britain's crimi-

nals has given this police force world* wide renown. That and honesty. Scot* land Yard is built on a solid rock o| honesty. INTERNATIONAL PROBLEM.

Thus much that has been written’ about the men should he regarded as nonsense. While those out of the Yard realise that pure reasoning is essential in the game of sleuthing, they are not unmindful of "the fact that the blood and bone of all police work is information. While the members of the British police corganisation do not employ stool pigeons, in the manner which prevails in New York, they rely on figures of the underworld for important tips. Those supplying information to the attaches of the Yard are known as “Narks.” And a “ Copper’s Nark” is held in low esteem. Unlike the stool pigeon of American fame, the Nark seldom embarks in any sort of a criminal enterprise, nor does he play the role of an agent provocateur as is the custom in New York. It is true that the methods employed by Scotland Yard and the police organisations of the large _ American cities differ markedly. Policing in the United States is in the main a domestic problem, while that abroad is often international in its scope in that it is linked with the great game of diplomacy and politics. But even in routine matters, such aa the picking up for a murder, there is a striking difference between the operations of the American police and those of England. ONLY WHEN SURE. There is a mysterious slaying—; Under the laws of Great Britain « policeman can arrest only on evidence* Suspicion is not enough. And in making the arrest his methods are still subject to rigid rules, t These are known as the Judge’s Rules, since they were drawn up by the High. Judges of the Crown a few years ago.; Even his approach is according to formula. If he knows the name of the man to ho taken into custody, the Scotland Yard mau says;— “ You are John Brown. I am a! policeman. lam arresting you for the murder of Jessie Jones. You need not make a statement.” The British police are not allowed to interrogate a suspect in such a way aa may incriminate him. They are tied tightly by the rules of the Commission of Police Procedure. They know that if they overstep the mark by an inch there will be a hullabaloo in ' the House of Commons with the Home Secretary on the grill, as to why oue' of His Majesty’s subjects has been deprived of his rights by the “ high* handed methods of the police.” And, if there is anything that an* noys Scotland Yard it is questions being asked in the House of Commons* It is a well-known fact that many men and women whom the police are quite certain of being murderers walk the streets of London, without the least interference. They retain their freedom’ until facts can be dug up to warrant their apprehension. . It is, m brief, the price the British pay for their fundamental right to be regarded as innocent until proved otherwise. ‘ .