POLICE METHODS

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLVIII, Issue 165, 12 June 1928, Page 7

POLICE METHODS

JUDGE’S CONDEMNATION. FURTHER EVIDENCE AT INQUIRY. THE CASE OF MISS SAVIDGE. (United Press Association.—By Electric Telegraph.—Copyright.) Received June 12, 8.55 a.m. (Australian Press Association.) LONDON, June 11. At the inquiry into Scotland Yard methods, Sir Patrick Hastings, counsel for Aliss Irene Savidge, who was charged with Sir Leo Chiozza Aloney, and later acquitted, of an offence in Hyde Park, resumed his cross-examina-tion of Chief Inspector Collins. Inspector Collins admitted that Aliss Savidge was not warned that the police wanted to ask her questions before she was asked to go to Scotland Yard. Deducting the interruptions the questioning of Aliss Savidge occupied 170 minutes. It began at 3.10 o’clock ana ended at 6.40. Aliss Savidge was wrong if she said that the questioning lasted until 7.40 p.m. Replying to Air Hastings Lees-Smith, Inspector Collins stated that lie was acting according to the routine of Scotland Yard. He regarded Aliss Savidge as a normal woman of twentytwo. He did not think that she was suffering nervous exhaustion when she signed the statement. A subpoena lias been issued for the attendance of a Aliss Egan and her brother.

POLICE IN EVENING DRESS

CONTINENTAL METHOD.

(Australian Press Association.) LONDON, Juno 11

Speaking in London, Judge Ather-ley-Jonos, Judge of Alayor’s City of London Court, since 1913, attacked the police and condemned their practice of extracting evidence from arrested persons by interrogation. If an accused person volunteered a statement he should be left to write it out himself. Prosecutions for indecency should not be brought unless corroboration by police was available. The practice of sending police in evening dress to buy champagne at night clubs savoured of the Continental agent-provacateur method. The proper procedure in the case of Aliss Savidge would have been to write and make an appointment and obtain her statement, not to drive up to her employers and carry her off to Scotland Yard.

The Press recalls Judge AtherleyJones’s activity in the Cash case in 1887, when a girl named Walker was wrongly charged with being a street walker. The Alinistry refused Judge Atherly-Jones’s demand for an inquiry, was defeated and then granted an inquiry.

His Honour Judge Llewellyn Archer Atherley-Jones, who lias been Judge of the Mayor's City of London Court since 1913,_ is the author of a number of books, a contributor to a number of reviews, and frequent correspondent of the London Times.-