Assaulting Police Constables.

Wairarapa Standard, Volume XIX, Issue 1830, 10 May 1886, Page 2

Assaulting Police Constables.

It seems that to assault a policeman in the execution of his duty may subject the offender to a very serious penalty. A Dunedin Magistrate recently gave a man three months’ imprisonment for assaulting a policemen, the latter’s leg having been broken in the melee It, however, turns out that under the Police Offences Act a man who assaults a policeman is liable to either three months’ peremptory imprisonment, without fine, a penalty of £2O, or committal to the Supreme Court, with the possibility of twelve months’ imprisonment. Of course police constables must be protected in the execution of their duty, and ruffians who commit savage assaults upon them should be severely punished. But there are oases in which some police constables grossly exceed their duty, and in which resistance to them is 'morally justifiable. In such oases the Magistrate would be justified either in dismissing the charge for assault or in inflicting a very small penalty. We think that the heavy penalties just mentioned are the maximum which can ba inflicted, and that the Magistrate has a discretionary power to make the amount of the fine a small one, when the nature of the case appears to justify such a decision.