POLICE CRITICISED.

Otago Witness, Issue 3755, 2 March 1926, Page 18

POLICE CRITICISED.

CHRISTCHURCH, February 24. A charge that the police had created a precendent almost unparalleled and that the good name of the police force had been tarnished by it was made in the Magistrate’s Court to-day by Mr R. Twvneham, counsel for a hotel licensee and a barman who were charged with supplying liquor to persons already under its influence. Mr Twyneham said that defendants in tlic present case had been called as witnesses by the police in an earlier case in which two men had been convicted of drunkenness. The licensee and the barman had voluntarily given evidence on that occasion, the barman stating that he had noticed the men were under the influence of liquor after he had served them, and that he snatched the drinks away. Thp licensee gave evidence in regard to a subsequent refusal to serve the men and of ordering them off the premises. Counsel criticised the action of the police in prosecuting the two witnesses upon whose evidence thev had relied in securing convictions, stating that (hey now asked the court to believe that the witnesses. who had been put forwnrd as witnesses of the truth, were now liars. The magistrate, Mr H. A. Young, asked Rub-inspector Matthew if he thought there was a case to answer, to which Rub-inspec-tor Matthew re.plied in the affirmative. The evidence of the barman was then heard, and the case was dismissed.