WORK OF POLICE

Taranaki Daily News, 14 January 1935, Page 14

WORK OF POLICE

LAST YEAR’S RECORD NEW DEPARTURE AUTHORISED. TWO UNSOLVED MURDERS. s i, a The year 1934 will figure in the police a and criminal history of New Zealand, not so much for the crimes that were 3 committed in it, as for the intense public 1 interest that was aroused in the equipment and methods of the New Zealand / Police Force. That individual members ■ of the force perform their duties efficiently few will deny, and, although t complete statistics are not available it is ' apparent that their efficiency was re- . fleeted by the diminished prevalence of crime in that year. But criticisms were levelled throughout New Zealand, and ’ particularly at Auckland, against the so-called obsolescence of police equip- ’ ment and the alleged anomalies in the police system. No one can say that New Zealand’s police equipment is as up-to-the-minute as it is in the large cities overseas, nor can it be gainsaid that there are anomalies in the system ’ under which the force works, but those who have a sound knowledge of police procedure in New Zealand cannot agree ’ with the severe fault-finding of the northern critics. Most Government departments are noted for their reticence, but none more than the Police Department, for obvious reasons. It is difficult, therefore, to obtain accurate and full information as ; to what the real position is, as the J Commissioner of Police (Mr. W. G. 1 Wohlmann) pointed out in a' recentlypublished statement in which he described much of the comment as uninformed and inaccurate because of lack of knowledge of police requirements and resources. There was no cause for uneasiness concerning the equipment of the New Zealand police, he said. Summarised, the position is that minor defects in the police system have been magnified by ignorant or disgruntled critics. New Zealand is a small country with , a small but largely law-abiding population, and those who demand a police force, equal to that of London or New York are calling for a cannon to shoot a mouse. Proof that the police are keeping reasonably abreast of the times is the fact that in the four main centres lectures are given to detectives and others on such special subjects as low ballistics, finger-printing, medical jurisprudence, micro-photography, and other phases of criminal investigation. The lectures are being delivered by experts in each subject. . THE AUXILIARY POLICE. An interesting happening of the year was the formation in its closing months of an auxiliary police force in : each of the four large cities. Explaining the proposals to . Parliament, where an opponent of the scheme characterised the force as' “a miniature Ogpu,” the Minister of Justice said that 150 men would be appointed at Auckland, 100 at Wellington, 60 at Christchurch, and 40 at Dunedin. They would be paid £1 a month, and would be required to attend evening parades possibly twice a month. It was estimated that their annual cost would be £4lOO, whereas to ' increase the permanent force by the same number would involve an annual expenditure of £105,000. It had been repeatedly impressed upon the Government that there was not a sufficient ' police force in New Zealand, and the ' most suitable men from the proposed auxiliary would be absorbed into the ] permanent force when eventually it was , increased in numbers. ‘ Easily the outstanding single event 1 of the year was not a crime but the , sequel to a crime—the trial of Bayly. j Never in the history of New Zealand , did a crime arouse such intense public ‘ interest as did the murder of Samuel ‘ Pender Lakey and his wife, Christobel Lakey, at Ruawaro on October 15, 1933. The murderer, William Alfred Bayly, a j neighbouring farmer, was hanged on July 20, 1934, after police investigations, t Lower Court hearing, and Supreme Court trial that were unparalleled for their scientific thoroughness and painstaking attention to detail. The Bayly case was s easily the most famous that has ever ‘ taken place in the Dominion. s UNSOLVED MURDERS. 1 Two unsolved mysteries from 1933 * found no solution in 1934 despite the j unrelenting work of the police. A find- , mg of murder by some person or persons „

unknown was returned by the coroner at the inquest in March last upon James Hunter Blair, who was found in a dying condition in his taxi at Mount Roskill, Auckland, early on the morning of Sunday, October 15, 1933. The deceased had received two blows with a heavy blunt instrument and death was due to fractures of the skull and hemorrhage of the brain. Intensive inquiries by large numbers of detectives and police constables, included the questioning of motorists and taxi drivers who might have carried the murderer after the crime, of milkmen and keepers of nightrestaurants, hotels, boardinghouses, billiard rooms, alleged gambling schools, and sly grog shops, failed to elucidate the identity of the man who committed the crime. The inquiries were continiue’d all over New Zealand, but so far no success has been met.

Early on the morning of November 17, 1933, Donald Fraser, toe licensee of the Racecourse Hotel at Riccarton, was killed with a shotgun while he was asleep in bed. The case presented many puzzling features, not the least of which was the apparent lack of motive for the crime. Ever since it happened the detective and uniform branches of the police force all over New Zealand have taken part in the search for the murderer, but no one has yet been charged with the offence. A reward of £3OO offered by the Government for information leading to the discovery and conviction of the murderer was left unclaimed for months. It was increased to £6OO in September last, the Minister of Justice then stating , that the police had not slackened in their investigations and ’ ped ultimately to establish the identity of the murderer. Still no further progress was made and only a fortnight ago the Police Department held out. an additional bait in the form of an indemnity against prosecution to any accomplice, not being the person who actually caused death, who, shall supply information leading to the finding of the murderer.

A third death which yet has to be traced to some person at present unknown was that of Margaret May Smith, a twenty-two-year-old girl who died at Blackball in September last after eating some chocolates which had been received anonymously through the post by two girl friends of hers. Strychnine poisoning was suspected, but police inquiries have so far not revealed who was the sender of the fatal sweet?. <The early part of the year was conspicuously free of capital crimes, but the later months contributed more than their share of killings. Nine people met their end in two series of murders and suicides in October, a Maori being responsible in each case, and in the following month another Maori killed his wife before cutting his own throat.

; MAORIS CAUSE TROUBLE. ! Of these three tragedies the one ! known as the Rangitoto tragedy was the most shocking. Without any reason a twenty-year-old Maori, Henare Hona, murdered the Davenport family of father, mother, and two sons near Te Kuiti on October 9, and decamped after . burning their house down. A search of the wild surrounding country was immediately instituted, and the police kept a sharp lookout at railway stations and upon any suspicious new arrivals in neighbouring districts. On October 18 the Maori youth, under an assumed name, obtained work at a labour bureau at Morrinsville, and he was driven to his place of employment by a taxidriver who recognised him from his published description and told Constable Heaps of his suspicions. The constable proceeded to interrogate Hona on October 21 in his room when suddenly the youth pulled out a .32 revolver from a suitcase and fired two shots at the constable, hitting him in the head and the arm and inflicting injuries which necessitated the constable’s removal to hospital. The Maori once again escaped, and again a vigorous man-hunt began. Armed with automatic pistols and rifles a large party of police officers and settlers scoured the countryside until on October 21 he was surrounded .about five miles away from where he had shot Constable Heaps. Seeing that escape was impossible Hona saved the Crown a lot of expense by placing the revolver to his head and pulling the trigger. He was alive but unconscious when the police reached him, and he died later in the day, twenty minutes after the death of Constable Heaps. While the initial hunt for the Rangitoto murderer was in progress a Waipiro Bay Maori named George Taylor shocked New Zealand by killing two other Maoris, Hori Smith and his wife, with a shotgun and then hanging himself from a tree with a bridle rein. "The eternal triangle” was the explanation of the affair. On the morning of November 17 a Maori, Barlow Karauria, who was mentally deranged, tried to commit suicide at Tokomaru Bay, close to the police station. He was prevented from cutting Ins throat with a razor by the courageous action of his wife, Hane Paka Karauria, but he was not to be denied, and picking up a large butcher’s knife he stabbed his wife to death and effected his original intention by plunging the knife into his throat. UNUSUAL THEFTS. Probably the most foolish and unusual theft committed in the Dominion during the year was that of an aeroplane belonging to the Auckland Aero Club. While watching flying activities at the Mangere aerodrome two young unemployed farm labourers made up their minds to steal an aeroplane. They slept in a haystack until about midnight on April 20 and then wheeled a machine out of ■ the l hangar and set off to fly to Norfolk Island en route to Australia. Luckily for them their adventure ended in a nearby swamp into which the machine crashed, being damaged to the extent of between £75 and £lOO. Later, in the Supreme Court, Mr. Justice Ostler sentenced them to two years’ Borstal detention for stealing the aeroplane. Another peculiar theft, also committed at Auckland, was that of a Vickers machine-gun in working order, with tripod, cartridge belts, and about 20 rounds of ammunition from a hall at New Lynn. Following the. theft, which occurred in August, detectives took special precautions in guarding money being conveyed from the totalisator to a city bank. Three months later the gun was accidentally found in the mud of a tidal creek about half a mile from the hall, but the mystery of how it disappeared and why has not been solved.