FALSE IMPRISONMENT

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19038, 7 December 1923, Page 5

FALSE IMPRISONMENT

WOMAN’S CLAIM SUCCEEDS,

CALLOUS TREATMENT BY EMPLOYEES,

Pre&a Association—By Tcleg rap h—Co pyrigb v LONDON, December b.

(Received December o, at 6.5 p.m.) The Lord Chie£ Justice (Lord Ho wart) and a special jury heard Mrs Abbott’s claim for damages against Garrould's, drapers in Edgeware road for false imprisonment and for trespass. The plaintiff complained that while she was an employee of Garrould’s she was called into the office and questioned by detectives with reference to the theft of two rolls of silk, although she told all she knew the detectives did not believe her, and made her accompany them to her flat, which the detectives ransacked.

The defence was that the firm was nob responsible Tor the manner in which the police carried out their duties. Detective Harney declared that the .plaintiff invited the detectives to search her flat if they thought that the stolen property was there. ’ The Chief Justice, in summing up, said that if the plaintiff’s story were true she had been treated with a cynical disregard for her dues. Her rights had been invaded and her dignity grossly affronted. It was a case in which the jury, if it chose, could award substantial damages to make it plain that the defendants nad been guilty of conduct which no British jury would tolerate. The jury awarded th-e plaintiff £SOO, and judgment was entered accordingly. A stay of execution was refused.—A. and N.Z. Cable.