SLY GROG-SELLING.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XXXVII, Issue 10239, 31 August 1909, Page 1

SLY GROG-SELLING.

METHODS OF OBTAINING EVIDENCE. (Per Press Association.) Auckland, August. 30. The methods adopted by the police in obtaining evidence for prosecutions for sly grog-selling and other offences were strongly criticised by Mr Kettle, S.M., in giving evidence before the Police Commission to-day. He recognised that it was difficult to obtain evidence in regard to such offences as sly grog-selling, but he had always held that it was an objectionable thing that any persons should be employed to endeavor to procure the commission of crime with the object of afterwards instituting a prosecution. He had often had to convict 011 such evidence when it was properly corroborated, but he held that it was putting constables into an unfair position to ask them to do sueli work in regard to sly grogselling, fortune-telling, or anything else. The people might just as well go round to the hotels after 10 o'clock at . night for the purpose of endeavoring to buy drink and to shops after 6 o'clock to buy goods. Such a state of things would be intolerable. The Gaming Act contained a special clause making this sort of thing lawful, and he thought that if it were to be adopted it should be done only with the sanction of an act of Parliament. He specially referred to the case in which the licensee of the St. Helier's Hotel was prosecuted for Sunday trading on the evidence of two constables who went down there with their wives and families and got into the confidence of the hotelkeeper and induced him to break the law. He liad to convict in this case, and he im-. posed a substantial penalty, but he held that the practice was wrong and dangerous. He went 011 the principle of "Lead us not into temptation.'-' It was wrong to lead people into temptation by offering tlieni inducements in the form of payment to commit of" fences.

Commissioner Dinnie: If we did not do what we now do, do you think that we would be able to detect many of the cases ? —I think-1 could detect sly grog-selling without going to persons and" endeavoring to entrap them into committing an offence. Mr Bishop said he did not think it would be so easy. He advised Mr Dinnie not to pursue the matter any further. Mr Kettle had stated his opinion, and' that was an end of it. Different magistrates and judges liad different opinions. He (Mr Bishop) did not think that any should be made between sly grog-selling and other offences. Mr Kettle, of course, was looking at tlie matter from the moral aspect. Inspector Cullen referred to a recent pronouncement by Mr Justiqe Cooper favoring the practice to which Mr Kettle objected.

Mr Kettle: That does not dispose of my objection. Mr Dinnie: If a constable saw . a drunken man going into a hotel, should he allow him to go in or stop him?—He should stop liim, of course. He should not allow him to go in with the view of afterwards prosecuting the hotelkeeper. . ' ,