WOMEN DETECTIVES

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 84, Issue 85, 12 April 1940, Page 8

WOMEN DETECTIVES

INCREASE IN LONDON WATCH ON NIGHT CLUBS LONDON, March 17. More women detectives are to be appointed to help the police to wipe out London’s lower-class night clubs, many of which are haunts of vice. For some months a few women have been helping Scotland Yard to secure the evidence necessary to close clubs down. The experiment has been so successful that the Home Office has now sanctioned the appointment of 12 more women detectives. They will be drawn from the uniform branch of the Women Police. The plain-clothes women already employed have displayed remarkable aptitude for criminal investigation. They have been able to gain admission to some night resorts where plain-clothes C.I.D. men would have been recognised. Stringent steps have been taken to conceal I heir identity. The women have also done much

good work in shadowing agents of both sexes who waylay young soldiers and offer to introduce them to undesirable companions and. haunts. A number of proprietors of dubious clubs, alarmed by the Yard’s new drive in the West End, are opening new premises in certain suburbs near central London. Soldiers on leave arc being approached in West End bars and cafes by touts who offer to take them to these newly-established clubs.