NO ARREST YET

Gisborne Times, Volume LXXXV, Issue 12981, 2 October 1936, Page 4

NO ARREST YET

ASSAULT ON MATRON PRICE RELUCTANT WITNESSES Hundreds of persons have been interviewed about the Tecent assault upon the matron of St. Cuthbert’s College, Epsom, but the police who are investigating the case have not secured sufficient information to war rant an arrest. Cases of this nature frequently present difficulties for the police. Chief among these difficulties, perhaps, is tho understandable reluctance of women witnesses to proffer information which, they fear, might involve them in publicity that would bring their namesj before the notice of the public. Actually, their fears are groundless, and : their refraining .from giving the police the benefit, of observations made round about the time of an assault or some minor act, frequently presents the 'authorities’ from identifying the man concerned. Inquiries into the incident at St. Cuthbert’s College on September 12 have elicited information concern in* r several cases involving insulting behaviour by men durng the past few months. In the majority of instanced the police were told they were not informed because the woman feared the publication of her name. The position in inch circumstances :,s tba,t th e Departmnt of Justice has power to. protect women witnesses from the possibility of their public identification.