POLICE AND THE PUBLIC

Taranaki Daily News, 12 October 1928, Page 11

POLICE AND THE PUBLIC

NECESSITY FOR CONFIDENCE AIMS OF BRITISH COMMISSION. MULL NOT BE ANY WHITEWASHING By Telegraph—Press Assn. —Copyright. Australian Press Association. Received October 11, 5.5 p.m. London, Oct. 10. “Our main efforts must be to restore the mutual confidence in the police by the public, which hitherto has been a striking and happy feature of the national organisation, tho absence of which undermines even gravely the Imperial basis of the social fabric,” said Lord Lee, presiding at the first public sittino* of the Police Commission, Ho ° added that he would not endeavour to restore confidence by whitewashing, but by the discovery and removal of any causes of friction and complaint. It must always be remembered that a law-abiding community did not wish to see the police discredited. In any case, the diminution of confidence, about which much has been said, was possibly exaggerated. The commission was not trying the police, and was not reopening recent notorious cases which had already been settled ni the courts. Lord Leo added that a questionnaire had already been sent to the judges, Government departments and the police throughout the country, and other individual associations would bo invited to reply. The witnesses would be selected after a perusal of the replies. . Sir Ernlcy Blackwell, the first witness, advocated that tho policeman’s oath as the King's officer and the general instructions should be standardised throughout the country, although I the Home Secretary did not believe in over precise regulations. He was expecting the police to exercise discretion.

The police generally believed the police were more powerful than they really were. Except for the power of arrest tho police were little different from citizens. He denied that the public was not sympathetic toward the police, and added there was no ground for the supposition that the police exceeded their powers of inquiry. His 22 years’ experience showed that there were few convicted persons who complained of the third degree. Lord Lee, commenting on the frequency of murder confessions, said it seemed a little odd that so many criminals were anxious to hang themselves. Sir Ernley Blackwell replied that they usually made a statement, hoping that the charge would be reduced to manslaughter. He said: “You must rely on the tradition of the force and the careful selection of the superior officers. You cannot run the police on a basis of distrust and suspicion.”

The commission is to consider the general powers ami duties of the police in England and Wales in the investigation of crimes, ineluding the functions of the director of public prosecutions and the police respectively. The commission is also to inquire into tlie practice followed in the interrogating of, or the taking of statements from, persons interviewed in the course of an investigation of a crime, to report whether in its opinion such powers and duties are properly exercised and discharged with due regard to the rights and liberties of the subject, the interests of justice and the observance of the judges’ rules for the taking of statements from accused or suspected persons both in letter and spirit, and to make any recommendations necessary in respect to such powers and duties and their proper exercise and discharge.