TO PRISON BY AIR

Southland Times, Issue 25385, 12 September 1935, Page 15

TO PRISON BY AIR

MODERN POLICE METHODS. Two men—a detective and a prisoner —recently made one of the most important additions to British legal history since the arrest of the notorious Dr. Crippen on the high seas by means of wireless. This was revealed somewhat casually at Blackpool Police Court when a waiter, James Stanley Anderson, aged 32, of Manchester, pleaded guilty to embezzling £1 10/- from the BiacKpool Tower Company. Mr H. E. Derham, the chief constable, stated that Anderson had previous convictions, but had gone straight for the past eight years. Along with two other men, he applied under a false name to the lower Company last month for employment as a waiter, and was engaged at 5/- a day, plus food and “tips." After collecting 30/- from customers, he disappeared, but was arrested by the Isle of Man police at Ramsey. He was brought back from there by Detective Frank McKenna, who travelled to and from the Isle of Man by aeroplane at a total cost of £3 15/-. Anderson was bound over for 12 months, and was ordered to pay £66/- expenses by the end of September next. Behind this bare summary, however, there is a background of enterprise that has created a precedent, and which will, no doubt, give the Home Office and Scotland Yard something to think over in the way of “privacy for prisoners.” Anderson was arrested in Ramsey on a Saturday morning, and when the Blackpool police were notified of this by telephone, Detective Frank McKenna was instructed to go there and “collect” his prisoner. The next boat was not due to leave Liverpool until midnight, arriving at Douglas on Sunday morning. As there was none back again until Supday midnight, it meant an idle day for the officer on Sunday, followed by an all-night crossing of the Channel. It would have been 8 a.m. on Monday before he and Anderson arrived in Blackpool—an interval of about 48 hours from the time the telephone message was received from the Isle of Man.

As an experiment, the officer decided to travel by air. He left Stanley Park Aerodrome, Blackpool, at 10 a.m. on the Saturday, and was back again, with Anderson lodged in the Blackpool cells, at 4.30 the same afternoon! Thus for the first time in Britain an aeroplane was used as a “Black Maria,” and Detective McKenna became a pioneer in a new type of “flying” squad. And, as Anderson has to foot the bill, it will have cost nothing for trying this swift and up-to-date method of transporting prisoners. Detective Frank McKenna. and his brother, Detective John McKenna, are sons of Detective-Inspector Francis McKenna, also of Blackpool. They are known in Lancashire’s underworld as the "Siamese Twins.” Frank gives the credit of his latest distinction, “Air ’Tec,” to his progressive chief constable, Mr H. E. Derham.