SHOULD POLICE TAKE PUBLIC INTO THEIR CONFIDENCE?

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18187, 21 June 1927, Page 1

SHOULD POLICE TAKE PUBLIC INTO THEIR CONFIDENCE?

OLD CITIZEN SAYS IT IS ADVISABLE. “ I rlo not think the police are doing right in not taking the public and the newspapers into their confidence,” said Mr R- E. Green to a “Star” reporter yesterday. “ I think that if they took the people into their confidence it would be almost sure to lead to some of them coming forward with some evidence that might lead to the arrest of the guilty person. “ There are scores of people you meet in the street under suspicious circumstances, but you think nothing of it because nothing has been said, but if any unusual circumstances got into the papers the poiice might be put in possession of valuable evidence. “ One particular feature that ought to lead up to important result was the spanner. The photograph of that spanner in the ‘ Star ’ was remarkable. There are many things about a spanner that might lead to its identification. The name of the maker, for instance. Then again, when we had no other means of marking our tools we used to

take a cold chisel or a centre punch and put so many dots or notches in a certain place. There may be such marks on the spanner that would indicate to whom it belonged. It strikes me forcibly that it came from a motorcar. but it may have come from any works. “ I think the police ought not to be so close in the matter and that they ought to let the papers know what lines they arc working on. It would help people to come forward. “ Take the Mouat case. Had that case been brought before the public it is quite possible I would have come forward and told them what I thought. My opinion still is that part of the woman's remains are i uried in the sewer at Mile P.oad. When the contractors lay a certain length of pipe it must remain open until the inspectors have passed it. Then they start filling it in. At this stage it would have been quite possible for any one to take along a parcel and cover it up looselv and when the workmen resumed their work next morning they would have completed the job. At -that time it would have been a small matter to open up the bit of trench that had been filled in from the time of the woman’s disappearance. There was another theory, too. It would have been easy for a man to open up a plate on the top of a brick kiln and drop a parcel in. If the kiln had been opened up promptly in that case bones would have been detected. By leaving the kiln until it had burned out, the bones would have been reduced to powder.”