POLICE METHODS.

Pelorus Guardian and Miners' Advocate., Volume 8, Issue 13, 12 February 1907, Page 4

POLICE METHODS.

MISAPPLIED ENTHUSIASM. Eleven desperate-looking individuals (there should have been twelve, but the twelfth was digging for bait, and couldn’t attend) were on Saturday morning brought before Messrs Smith and Price, J.’sP., and charged with having “ wilfully damaged fruit-trees to the extent of 2s 6d, the property of one Edward Powell.” The prosecutor was Constable Gordon, locum tenens for Constable King, and as he is over six feet in height and his prisoners ranged from about four feet to two feet six inches the contrast was striking. But many a desperate villain has been concealed in a small frame, and Constable Gordon kept both eagle eyes on his quarry, in case the seven-year-old section should suddenly charge him. The boys were each asked whether they were guilty or not guilty of the charge preferred, and each one replied: “Went into the orchard, but didn’t damage any trees.” This flabbegasted the Constable, so he flourished a document and stated he would substitute a charge of theft. The Bench now thought it time to take a hand, as they probably thought that the Constable’s determination to get a conviction would lead him and the children into deep water. They therefore gave the boys a lecture on the evils of taking fruit from another person’s orchard, and let them go. The charge was laid under Section 37 of “ The Indictable Offences Summary Jurisdiction Act, 1894,” and it was fortunate for Constable Gordon that a solicitor was not retained on behalf of the children. The boys cleared themselves of the charge upon which they were apprehended, and if the Constable had charged them with theft he would have been unable to prove it without intimidating the children, and even he probably knows what would have been the result of that line of acfciouThe Constable’s zeal certainly outran his discretion, for the obvious and commonsense course to adopt was to take the children to the Headmaster of the local school (they were all pupils). This the Constable was asked to do, and the Headmaster himself intimated to him that ho would suitably chastise the boys. But so eager was Constable Gordon to secure a conviction that he ignored all suggestions as to what all other people consider was the 'best course to take. Constable Gordon may have felt a glow of manly pride as he marshalled his regiment of eleven, but he can rest assured that in this instance the comparison was distinctly odious.