POLICE PRAISED

Southland Times, Issue 20886, 23 September 1929, Page 7

POLICE PRAISED

FINE DETECTIVE WORK. STATEMENT BY COMMISSIONER. (Per United Press Association.) Wellington, September 21. "It is one of the finest cases of detective work in the Southern Hemisphere and should be an indication to citizens of the Dominion of what the New Zealand police can do,” stated the Commissioner of Police in reference to the arrest in Australia on Thursday of a bandit who is accused of holding up a storekeeper in Rosell, stealing £2O, and shooting the pursuing constable through the groin in the course of a gun duel. At the time the criminal made good his escape and the only clue left to the police was a case of spectacles embossed with the name of a New Zealand maker.

This was submitted to a Sydney optician who gave a scientific description of the grinding of the glasses which was immediately cabled to the New Zealand police. On receipt of the communication investigations were at once commenced and two hours later the name of the owner had been ascertained by Auckland detectives in the records of an optician’s establishment in that city. Within a few hours of cabling the request for the man’s name and criminal history information that the New Zealand police had already a photograph of the wanted man was forwarded to headquarters in Sydney and resulted in his arrest. Some time ago this man was the subject of a sensational arrest in Auckland when, with a woman accomplice, he was pursued by the police and only overtaken after a long and exciting motor car chase. Both were afterwards convicted on charges of burglary. The Commissioner of Police has received a cable from the New South Wales Commissioner, expressing appreciation of the co-operation and prompt action of the New Zealand police in dealing with the matter.