DETECTIVE SERGT YOUNG

Greymouth Evening Star, 9 April 1932, Page 12

DETECTIVE SERGT YOUNG

TRANSFER TO DUNEDIN. Detective-Sergeant J. Bruce Young, senior detective of the Christchurch office, has been transferred, and will take charge of the Dunedin detective office at the beginning of next month. Official confirmation of this report, which has been current in the Wellington and Christchurch offices during the past two days, will be received with considerable regret not only in the local force, but also by the business community, who hold DetectiveSergeant Young in high regard (says a Christchurch contemporary)-

The position of Chief-Detective in Dunedin has been vacant since the retirement of Chief-Detective A. CQuartermain, and Mr Young’s appointment will mean a change in policy on the part of the Department. Detec-tive-Sergeant Young is one of the senior detective officers of the Dominion, but there are a number of uniformed men who are ahead of him in service. If he takes charge of the Dunedin office it will be without promotion, and as such at a considerable loss to himself. Detective-Sergeant Young has had an extremely creditable career since he joined the police force in 1910; since he came-to the city in 1924 he has been connected- with every case of major importance in the Canterbury district. He is at present in Timaru, where he is conducting investigations into the recent shooting case at the Hermitage, Mt. Cook. He was born at Kaiapoi, but after leaving the police depot in Wellington he was sent to Auckland, where, after a period of uniformed work he was transferred to the detective branch. It was while he was in the Auckland office that he was connected prominently with the Ponsonby murder case, for which Denis Gunn was later hanged. In this he was associated with Inspector J. Cummings and ex-Chiel’-Detective A. Hammond. From Auckland he was transferred as sole detective at Greymouth, and there he soon established himself in the confidence of the 'people as a reliable and efficient officer. He found the solution to several prominent robbery cases. In 1924 he was promoted to his present rank and transferred to Christchurch, where he has been ever since. ,

Detective-Sergeant Young’s chief value in the local detective office has been his ability to deal with the most intricate financial tangles, but he has been prominently before the public mainly through his investigations in connection with the various cases of violence of recent years. He was one of the principals in the Burwood murder investigation, and he was in charge of the Lake Coleridge case two years ago. Since then he has handled two suspected murder cases, one at Marsden on the West Coast, and the othr at Picton. Neither of these cases has yet been brought to Court, but Detective-Sergeant Young has carried them as far as it is possible for him to do. He was also prominently connected with work in connection with the “firebug” outrages in Christchurch three years ago.