POLICEMEN AND GIRL

Greymouth Evening Star, 17 September 1928, Page 5

POLICEMEN AND GIRL

A LONDON SCANDAL.

Australian Press Assn.—United Service.) (By Cable—Press Assn.—Copyright.) LONDON, September 14. After close on three days’ trial at the Old Bailey, J. W. Clayton and C. T. Stevens, two Metropolitan constables, were sentenced to eighteen months’ imprisonment each for conspiring to bring a false charge against Helen Adele, a twenty-one year old girl, and also for wilful and corrupt perjury in support of this charge. The case for the prosecution was supported by many witnesses, and x it was to the effect that last July Miss Adele resented the attentions of Constable Clayton in a taxicab in a garage at Islington, where she sometimes used to sleep; and also that when she threatened to inform the Sergeant, both Clayton and Stevens, who were accustomed to visit this garage while they were supposed to be on night duty, arrested her on a charge. <J£ using insulting words and behaviour. The charge was dismissed at the Police Court, after which the constables were arrested at the instigation of the Public Prosecutor. In view of the recent-police disclosures, there has been considerable interest in this case. Sir Henry Curtis Bennett, K.C., M.P. defended the accused. He declared that if the condition of affairs in the Metropolitan Police Force were such as had been suggested, then this case - z was worse than any anti-police fana-. tic had ever suggested. It was alleged that the police were perjurers/ and that they left their beats at any time for anything. It also was alleged that they had got the'public into such a state that nobody would care to say them nay. Sir H. Curtis Bennett dealt at length with the character of the He described them as “a gang from the garage.” Miss Adele had said in her evidence that she thought; that policemen in uniform could do as they liked. Sir H. Curtis Bennett added that if that were the position in the police, then it was quite time that something should be done. . ■ Mr Justice Humphreys declared that it was a serious case. These men had disgraced the uniform. The defendant Stevens collapsed in the Court.