ALLEGED BRIBERY.

Taranaki Daily News, 14 May 1925, Page 7

ALLEGED BRIBERY.

TRIAL OF DETECTIVES, SUMS INVOLVED, DEFENCE A DENIAL* By Telegraph.—Press Assn —Copyright. Received May 13, 11.5 p.m. Melbourne, May 13. The trial of Detectives Oldham and MacPherson on charges of conspiring, together with Detectives O’Sullivan and Fowler, unlawfully to obtain money from Terence Callaghan, licensee of the Londonderry Hotel, Collingwood, is proceeding. Since the case was previously before the court Fowler has disappeared and O’Sullivan has become an inmate of a receiving home and is under the care of mental specialists. The defence is a complete denial of the charge. Counsel for MacPherson claimed that never was such a cock and bull story told before a court. The four detectives, after a departmental inquiry, were charged on three charges of conspiracy, of the theft of £lOOO, and of demanding with menaces £'6500 from Terence Callaghan, licensee of the Londonderry Hotel, Collingwood. The Crown Prosecutor, in outlining the case, said it was alleged that during Callaghan’s absence from the hotel a man called and left certain articles, for which Miss Cailaghan paid t £lo. Shortly afterwards the four accused detectives appeared, and on searching the hotel they found the articles. They suggested that the girl’s father should be seen before she was arrested. The following morning the goods were carried from the hotel by Detectives O’Sullivan and Fcwler, and concealed at the lost pror pcrty office at the railway station. During the negotiations which followed, O'Sullivan is alleged to have told Callaghan that he (Callaghan) would get two years in goal and his daughter twelve months for receiving stolen y « ds. After bargaining it was arranged tf&t Callaghan should pay £6500 sterling, and the affair would be “hushed up.*