IMPERSONATION OF POLICE OFFICER RESULTS IN GAOL

Wanganui Chronicle, 6 October 1950, Page 6

IMPERSONATION OF POLICE OFFICER RESULTS IN GAOL

AUCKLAND, Yesterday (PA)—To a charge of pretending to be a member of the New Zealand Police Force, Maurice Vivian Blackler, aged 24, an hotel porter, pleaded guilty in the Police Court today. Senior Detective J. B. Finlay told the Court that about 1.15 on the morning of Sunday, September 17, a 19-year-old girl and her boy friend were walking along Hobson Street when the girl suddenly became ill and fell unconscious. A passing taxi, in which Blackler was a passenger, stopped, and the girl and her escort were driven to the Auckland Hospital. Blackler told the doctor who examined the girl that he was “Police Inspector Ryecroft,” and thought it was his duty to take the girl home and investigate the type of boardinghouse in which she lived. The doctor was suspicious and telephoned the police. Blackler who had said he was on six months’ leave from the police force and was guarding a patient at the hospital, then disappeared. “Apparently Blackler has only a very vague idea of leave granted to policemen,” said Senior Detective Finlay. He added that a taxi driver later identified Blackler at a dance hall as a man who had represented himself as a traffic officer. Blackler denied this when seen by a detective, but admitted that he had posed as “Inspector Ryecroft” just to show off. “I had been drinking and cannot remember what happened that night,” Blackler told the magistrate. “You are building up quite a list,” Mr. W. S. Spence, S.M., told Blackler. “This is the second time you have posed as a police officer.” A sentence of six weeks’ imprisonment with hard labour was passed.