POSED AS DETECTIVE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20563, 14 May 1930, Page 14

POSED AS DETECTIVE.

MAN FROM SOUTH AFRICA.

"DANGER TO COMMUNITY."

IMPRISONMENT FOR THEFT.

"Accused is a new arrival from South 'Africa, who has been imposing on a number of private institutions, and ho seems to bo of a very undesirable typo," said Chief-Detective Hammond in the Police Court, yesterday, when Philip Henry Peter Ross, aged 37, described as an expoliceman, was charged with assuming tho designation of a member of the New Zealand polico force, and also with the theft of cocaine, valued at 4s. Accused pleaded guilty to both charges. Chief-Detectivo Hammond said accused had been going about the town armed with a pair of handcuffs and a whistle, and had been telling people ho was a detective-ser-geant. He had imposed on a number of private institutions, upon the Boy Scout headquarters and upon individuals. He had visited a chemist's shop, producing a prescription which ho ordered to bo made up. lie later returned to tho shop, while the chemist vas away, "ml, telling his wife that, he was a chemist himself, obtained permission to make up the prescription. While doing so he helped himself to the cocaine.

Accused had produced references, but Mr. Hammond said he doubted these, as they were apparently written in the same hand. One reference from tho SouthWest African Police concluded with a statement that Posh had undoubted talents for criminal investigation.

A spectator in 1 lie rear of tho Court made a decisive sound, and accused turned derisively round at liim. "What are you laughing at ?" he asked. "Do you think this is a circus?" "Tho man is a palpable danger to tho community," said the magistrate, Mr. F. K. Hunt. "I think he had better be doported." Accused was fined .CIO, in default ono month's imprisonment on the first charge, and on-the second ho was sentenced to 0110 month's imprisonment.