CONSTABLE SMYTH'S DISMISSAL.

Colonist, Volume LV, Issue 13752, 18 June 1913, Page 6

CONSTABLE SMYTH'S DISMISSAL.

MR HERDMAN INTERVIEWED

[United Press Association.]

Christchurch, June 17

Seen by a "Press" representative to-day on the subject of ex-Constable Smyth's case, the Hon A. L. Herdman. Minister of Justice, made a statement dealing with the grounds for Smyth's dismissal from the. force. .

"Tho facts in Smyth's case are these," said Mr Herdman. "Complaints had been made to the Greymouth polico that timber had been disappearing from the trucks on the wharf. Constable Smyth was specially instructed to watch these trucks, and to report to the senior sergeant at his (the senior sergeant's) house at 5 o'clock in tho morning. The constable, without any satisfactory explanation, left his beat between 3 and 4 o'clock in the morning, and came to the station. Ho entered in the book before 4 a.m that he had como off duty at 5 a.m. Smyth has been in the service only twelve months, and his conduct at Auckland had nothing to do with his dismissal from the force at Greymouth. It is quite, impossible to have a man in the force who acts as this man lias done." *