BRITISH POLICE SCANDAL.

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXV, Issue 18620, 16 July 1930, Page 2

BRITISH POLICE SCANDAL.

CHIEF CONSTABLE RESIGNS Extraordinary disclosures are made in a report issued by a committee appointed recently by the Bristol City Council to investigate allegations made by the Labour members at a meeting of the council following which Mr J. H. Watson recently resigned his position as chief constable. It was stated, among other things, that Mr Watson used a police car for a family tour in Scotland; a fire brigade lorry took the luggage of Mr Watson and his friends to Cornwall when they spent a holday there; a constable worked for two years as a gardener at Mr Watson’s house without doing any police duties. The report concludes: “The committee is of the opinion that Mr Watson was not justified in utilising the services of policemen or firemen or police vehicles for private purposes and strongly deprecates his conduct in this respect. It recommends that Mr Watson should be required to compensate or reimburse the corporation in respect of the services which he wrongly employed for private purposes, and estimates the value of the services at £1,516.”

The comittee found that nine firemen were employed 3,347 hours on work at the chief constable’s house building a garage, etc.; that a man was sworn in as a constable without examination in police duties, to become a gardener at the chief constable’s house, and for over two years did no police duties, though receiving the usual pay and allowances.

There had also been engaged at the chief constable’s house, it was alleged Fireman Johnson four months, and Fireman Pink nearly three years, at the expense of the police authority. Maunder, an ex-police sergeant, not only drew his pension, but his pay as a special constable in addition, while Johnson’s wife acted as cook in Mr Watson’s house without pay.

Evidence showed that official cars were used for private purposes on numerous occasions, a policeman acting as chaffeur, while a private car was sometimes similarly driven petrol being supplied and repairs carried out at the police station. Evidence had been furnished, added the report, that one official car, in August, 1921, took Mr Watson and the members of his family for a tour in Scotland, and during that period the • records showed that the chaffeur drew an allowance, in addition to his pay. In the following year the car conveyed Mr Watson and his family and personal friends, to Tintagel on holiday. Mr Watson’s luggage and that of his friends was taken to Tintagel in a fire brigade lorry, and fetched from Tintagel in the same lorry, the council’s petrol and oil being used.

The record showed that the wages, including extra duty allowance, paid to the chaffeur in connection with the Scotland and Tintagel tour amounted to £55 19s. 3d. The evidence also showed that in the latter part of 1929 the same car was sent from Bristol to Eastbourne to fetch Mr Watson’s mother to Bristol, and fortnight later the same car took her back to Eastbourne.

Mr Watson’s answer to the allegations was that he considered the employment of police and firemen and the occasional use of the vehicles as a privilege attaching to his position, and that his experience showed that the executive heads of the police forces enjoyed by unwritten law certain customs and privileges, though it would be unfair for him to give information concerning the privileges enjoyed by other police chiefs. At the meeting of the City Council, when the report was considered, it was decided to demand payment from Mr V/atson of £1,516. A Labour amendment that Mr Watson be prosecuted was rejected by a large majority.