IS IDENTIFICATION PARADE A BLUFF?

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18009, 20 November 1926, Page 8

IS IDENTIFICATION PARADE A BLUFF?

To the Editor. Sir,—lt is hard to know what powers the police have in the matter of arrests. Through the medium of your valuable paper, may I relate, for the benefit of your correspondent “ Perplexed," a little incident which oc curred some considerable time ago. A woman was accosted in the street by two detectives and asked to accompany them to a certain establishment as complaint was made that a certain article was improperly obtained and that she was suspected (not by the firm, but by the detectives). The alternative was that if she refused to accompany them she would be taken to the police station and paraded. The first course was adopted and to tht utter confusion of the detectives. (Understand, no charge was laid against the woman.) Will anyone say this was not an arrest? Referring to the identification parades:—Just try to imagine (a fact) an accused person, slim, fair, tali and fashionably dressed, placed for identification amongst a crowd of stout, short and dark people, attired in ordinary household clothes. A police conception of fairness. The public have been given food for reflection in the recent scathing remarks of Mr Justice Stringer anent the police methods of parades. I think the methods adopted by the police warrant the fullest investigation.—l am, etc., JUSTITIA.