HUNTER OF CRIMINALS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21112, 20 February 1932, Page 2 (Supplement)

HUNTER OF CRIMINALS.

NOTED DETECTIVE'S CAREER. LIFE WITH MANY THRILLS. DESPERATE ENCOUNTERS.. After 27 years' service in the London Metropolitan Police Force, Division-De-tective-Inspector W. Keen, who, since February, 1927, had been in charge of the Criminal Investigation Department of the P Division, which covers an enormns area, comprising no fewer than 350,000 inhabitants, has retired. Mr. Keen, it is suggested, is the only police officer to finish his official career at the same station to which he was originally drafted when he became a constable in October, 1904. Appointed a detective two years after joining the force, Mr. Keen did most useful work, for which he received commendations from the commissioners of police, the judges at the Old Bailey, London Sessions,- and the magistrates. Before going to the Peckham Division as chief-in-charge of the C.1.D., Mr. Keen had had many adventures as the second in command of Scotland Yard's famous Flying Squad. Before that lie was concerned in a raid on makers of counterfeit coins at Hampstead, when three foreigners wore arrested for making Belgian and French five-franc pieces on a large scale. They had a complete outfit, including furnace, crucibles, moulds, quantities of metal, and batteries. In January, 1912, Mr. Keen was engaged in tiie investigation concerning the loss of pearls of great price which were bought in London for the Queen of Siam, but were stolen in transit to Bangkok. Arrest After Three Years. Europe had been scoured in order to find a pearl collar which would please the eye of the Queen, and eventually a collar, valued at £IO,OOO, was bought near Charing Cross. Although the package was carefully guarded en route, the pearls had mysteriously disappeared when it arrived in Bangkok. For three years the police of Asia and Europo searched for tlio missing jewels, when, after a clue in Singapore, Mr. Keen arrested a man in the City. Perhaps the most sensational case Mr. Keen was involved in was when, pretending that lie was a criminal, he gained the confidence of an ex-constable who was attempting to incite a convicted man tr> commit a burglary. Tlio ex-constable made suggestions to the ex-convict about robbing a jeweller's shop, saying the job was worth £2OOO, but the man got in touch with the police. Later, the ex-convict introduced Mr. Keen as a " crook," and various meetings took place between the three. No suspicions were aroused in tho ex-constable's mind in spite of numerous meetings, and Mr. Keen became an interested party in multifarious plots and arrangements. It was a very much surprised ex-constablo who appeared in the dock and learned that his " accomplice " was a police officer. Three Fierce Fights. On one occasion in January, 1927, while with several other officers in a Flying Squad motor in tho south-eastern district, Mr. Keen became suspicious of the behaviour of five men. The officer pounced upon them, arid a fierce struggle ensued. When one of the men produced a fullyloaded automatic pistol ho was promptly tackled and overpowered. Ho was sentenced to 10 years' penal servitude. In one instance Mr. Keen was engaged in a fierce fight when three men attempted to carry out a daylight raid on a diamond merchant's premises in Oxford Street. The men had been under observation for some time, and when one of them broke tho window of the shop with a brick, tho officers swooped down upon them. One of the men was so violent that he had to bo carried bodily, and all were sent to prison. Flying Squad officers under Mr. Keen had a hand-to-hand tussle with six men who wero attempting to rob a Pall Mall tobacconist's, when the burglars used their jemmies as weapons. Although the officers were outnumbered at the time, they succeeded in arresting three, tlio other men getting away.