THE NEW COMMISSIONER OF POLICE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XL, Issue 12268, 12 May 1903, Page 6

THE NEW COMMISSIONER OF POLICE.

AN INTERVIEW.SOME INTEREST » ING EXPERIENCES. fFROM OUR OWN CORRE IPONDBST.I

Lond >n, April 11. With reference to Chief-L spector Dinnie, the newly-appointed Commissioner of Police for New Zealand, the Dail Telegraph has some notes on his retirement from Scotland Yard on a pension to take up his duties in New Zealand. These speak highly of his ability.

To-day I spent an hour with Commissioner "Dinnie, going wit i him through many of his experiences, which have extended over 20 years. It is one of the rules of the service that, a man must first join the uniform branch, 1 .nd in this Mr. Dinnie spent about two months. He was then selected as clerk of the executive branch at Scotland Yard—Old Scotland Yard, as it then waswhi re all the clerical work is performed in connection with the uniform branch. He was soon promoted to the rank of a sergeant, and was transferred to the C.I.D. as clerk to the chief constable of that bnit.cn. After some two 01 three years at that he undertook detective duty "at- an advanced rate of pay, being soon again promoted to the rank, of inspector. ■At this he remained until about four years ago, when he w is made a chiefinspector. I gathered these main facts as I was looking through a voluinirous scrap book, in which New Zealand's Commissioner of Police has kept newspaper records of some of his cases. One of the 1 rst- cases of importance was that of an alleged murder on the high seas, in which two officers of the American ship the. J. I . Chapman were concerned. Then followed a long series of forgery cases, leading up to a noted case in 1887, when some notorious long-firm swindlers were brought 0 justice. The principals in this took expensive premises in Oxford-street, and orde - ed goods of all sorts and descriptions frc m all parts of the country, never paying me penny piece. They then started as a nufacturing Arm with the proceeds of their swindles, when Mr. Dinnie appeared' on the scene, and four of them were sentenced to penal servitude. Then, after investigating some frauds against the Lord Chancellor, in 1889, he was engaged in extensive milk frauds, in which milk was obtained from all parts, changes being " rung" on addresses. Penal servitude .Hollowed in this case also.

A series ot betting cases, ensued, this to be followed in 1891 by Air. Dinnie being instrumental in breaking up what was known as " the London Fire Ring," this being an arson conspiracy in which eight men and a woman were concerned. Private as well a,s business premises were token and burned for the insurances, but after a long investigation the who) e gang was convicted.

"By all accounts there may be something in this line for you to do occasionally on the other side," I remarked. " So I hear," said Mr. Dinnie laconically, but with an emphasis that seemed to point to the insurance companies finding in him a. friendly ally. Here in the scrap book I came across some frauds that had been, perpetrated on. noblemen—Lords Dudley and Rosslyn. This fraud was carried out by an " ingenious trick," as Mr. Dinnie ! limself described it. A woman called on l ord Dudley and handed him a letter with a heading upon it printed exactly the same as on his trainer's letters. She said she was the daughter of the trainer, ■who had another daughter married; on this married daughter's goods a distraint for £200 had been levied; Mr. Marsh, the trainer, was away, but had told them if there was anything important they were to see His Lordship or another gentleman named. Lord Dudley, taken in, gave a cheque for the amount. Outside the woman was met by two men, who at once cached the cheque, and then, to make assurance doubly sure, the notes received were taken to the Bank of England and changed :?or other notes, so as to destroy all clue. The fraud wars soon discovered, and Mr. Dinnie went to the bank. The day after swindling Lord Dudley, the gang managed the same trick with Lord Rosslyn, and, going through the same operation, were caught red-handed. Mr. Dinnie saw two men who were known to him endorsing notes. " Hallo," he said to himself, "this is the lot." To their undoing he was- right. He took them into custody, and found on them several of the notes secured the previous day, while their stockings were stuffed with gold. The three of them got pen 2,1 servitude, and warm commendation from be Commissioner of Police followed, Mr. Di.nnie's report on the case being endorsed tc that effect. After a series of insurance frauds, the man that " broke the bank at Mo ate Carlo" next engaged Mr. Dinnie's services. "Did he really break the bank?" I asked Mr. Dinnie.

"Oh, yes," was the reply. "He broke it right enough. And a vi:ry clever fellow he was."

It appears this gentleman was an engineer, who had brought oat a process of using up exhaust steam a :,econd time. His machinery was beautifully balanced, so that- other engineers wers deceived, he got hold of thousands of pounds, and lived in lavish style. So respectable was he and of such good position, apparently, that though there were suspicions, everyone was chary of taking steps against him. But a fortnight after Sir. Dinr ie took the matter in hand the case was clear against him. Turning over the scrap book, T came across a rough sketch of :i man's head in profile, evidently the work of someone not an artist. That, Mr. Dinnie explained to me, was the work of a young girl, and by that rough portrait, drawn purely from memory, he was, able to arrest a forger. Another beautifully-finished drawing of a beautiful and fashionably-dressed lady was the work of another prisonerit was the portrait of that prisoner's sweetheart. Alleged frauds on Mr. Goschen and more betting cases brought Mr. Dinnie in 1895 to cases of extensive forgeries of circular notes on Messrs. Coutts and Co. These notes • were precisely tl: e same as the genuine ones, and money-enders and tourist agents like Messrs. Thomas Cook and Sons, all over the Contine nt, were robbed. Mr. Dinnie spent two months on the Continent, and eventually go; hold of three of the most notorious forgers m Europe. He brought them back to London, where a nice legal question arcs* >: Could people be prosecuted here for forgeries uttered abroad? This led to the laying down of the law that there was a continuation of the "uttering" when the note reached England. Sentences of ID, five, and six years followed. Quite a new series of cases now came up. They are known at the present day as the " pawn ticket fraud," and the credit of their being brought to light rests largely with Mr. Dinnie. On certain classes of articles, good jewellery and such like, readily salable, pawnbrokers will sometimes lend almost the full value, and even quite the full valus. The " game" here was to pawn such articles up to the hilt, and then advertise the tickets "at a sacrifice." People of course were readily gulled, -for it is a popular belief that a pawnbroker only lends u; > to a. third of the value of the artiele. (rood prices were realised for the tickets, which were, of course, valueless so far as money value was concerned, the buyers bt ing " done" for the amount? they had pa..ic! for the tickets. Complaints of this trick h;,d been received. But the Treasury and eve a Scotland Yard refused to take the matter up. At this time Mr. Dinnie was 'at Bow-street. He determined to have a try, and succeeded in getting a conviction, s nee which there have been several prosecutions. "I studied the matter, yan see," he said, as he told me of this. " I believe in working and studying, and I got that gang penal servitude." Several forgeries of post office orders; cases of fraudulently obtaining fee's for loans never advanced whit !i yielded to the swindlers "a marvellous amount of moneya case of menacing Lord Carrington, and others, led Mr. Dinnie up to a case not at all unlike, iu many respects, the Humbert affair. A sham French

" Countess" and her family, including a "beautiful daughter whose portrait gained a beauty prize, lived with the best and on the best for two years. Without possessing a penny piece, they swindled right and left, never paying anyone anything, Air. Dinnie, however, got the whole lot convicted,.

After a series of foreign banwTT genes, Lis next big case was tw , for " Duchess of Sutherland's jewel A * tte Harry, the valet, J 1 theft by " Of course, one gets a cerS;„ i of thieves, and one knows who Wft? to do different- kinds of theft " c Dinnie, when I asked him to tell J" ,~lrthis case " Harry- the valet did th ♦v* very well; hut he showed the i! - * a woman, and let her wear the" tx> picked the man out from a lot J ,™ 5 graphs—l thought it was he who haft*' it. You see, he had been at it, before ? heard nothing more from her but i v 1 that he was knocking about the cluß night, Eventually we got Mm at - T M in Pimlico, through a latchkey befe in the door. As you hare heard ft?a* chain was up, so we had to [J 'n!f r cover again as quickly as possible T it had to be done so quickly that. n-L ,V the key m the door, and had to go S again for it. It was very amusing Af, wards, m getting into the house, tVln*l* lady tried to stop us, but we carried h into a back room. The room t-i," "Harry- was was locked; we smashed }! the panels oj the door, and there was man standing there half-dressed and?/ founded. He said, "All right,' I Mn ,,t resist.' It would have been no good i, trying, lor both Inspector Forrest a.' jjl' self had revolvers. We kept him "ihJ' some time while we searched, and * found a lot of the jewellery secreted J the top of a cupboard." More bank cases followed this, and then an aristocratic swindler and a Mr " decoy," were arrested at lunch at one of the fashionable restaurants. Mr. Dinnie and another officer having found them joined them at the table, told them 'to finish their lunch quietly, anil th™ " Come." They took the advice. " Last, but not least, Mr. Dinnie was in strumental in bringing to justice the" me of Bank of England note-forgets, on which Inspector Davidson, oi the city police, and himself had been working for two years and a-half. There were, he thinks, two groups of forgers at work, separately, and the last batch were much the cleverer of the two. The forged notes in this case he told me, were really good, and executed with the greatest care. Even to thi watermark the work was perfect. Tjj, was imitated in a most ingenious manner A plate was engraved with the true wafce> mark raised this plate was put'oa th paper of the forged notes; and tinea tie paper was nibbed carefully awc.y until the watermark came on permanent," aid M if woven with the paper. For theisi forgeries 19 persons have been arreted; their sentences so far have aggregate! 127 years ; one has committed suicide,j and there are two at present awaiting- ttal.' Not merely, however, lias Mr. linni# brought the criminal to justice, bit he has saved the innocent. Not long; ago two men were sentenced for alleged van robberies. They were identified certain Russian Jews, but there appearin; tv be a doubt, Mr. Dinnie mado exliauftm inquiries, and, feeling convinced of, lis innocence of the convicted men, he re ported upon the case, with the result tha, they were liberated. On the 23rd inst, Chief-Inspector Duma and his family sail for New Zeal Mid by the s.s. Ruapehu. " 1: