CONFESSION OF GUILT

Dominion, Volume 20, Issue 47, 19 November 1926, Page 12

CONFESSION OF GUILT

ALLEGED BLUFF BY DETECTIVE GIRL'S THEFT FROM FATHER MAGISTRATE ENTERS CONVICTION Dominion Special. Auckland, November 18. “I refuse to believe Uiat an experienced detective lute Mr. cambert, oi the other oiucer, too, lor that matter, would be a party to a biull to induce a young woman to make confession of an otlence ol winch sue was innocent, and I'm going to convict the young woman.” With these words Mr. F. K. Hunt, S.M., brought to a close in the Magistrate’s Court this morning a case presenting some remarkable features. A girl of 20 years, charged with the theft of £7, the property of her father, set up as a defence that Detective Lambert had induced her to sign a statement confessing guilt, and that she would not have signed it had he not threatened to take her to the police station, and held out further that as the case was a family matter nothing more would be beard of it if she cleared it up. It was shown in evidence that the father of the girl placed a £5 note and two single notes in an envelope on July 17 and gave the letter to his daughter to post. The letter, addressed to a bank, failed to reach its destination, and the father lodged a complaint with the Post and Telegraph Department. The father stated that he had no reason to doubt his daughter’s word. At the time when she posted the letter she was living at home, but for the past two or three vears she had been in a position in the city. Detective Lambert produced a statement written by himself and signed by accused. In it the girl admitted having retained the money for her own use, and stated that she’had cashed the £5 note. She expressed regret for having caused so much trouble. The detective said that he interviewed accused in company ■ with Constable Carroll, who was attached to the detective staff.

Mr. A. FI. Johnstone, who entered a plea of not guiltv on the girl’s behalf, questioned Detective Lambert as, to the circumstances of the interview, which had taken place in the roof garden at Auckland Infirmary, where accused was a probationer nurse. The interview was said to have lasted au hour and a quarter. Counsel: I suggest to you that it took two hours. Detective Lambert: Not more than an hour and a quarter. Counsel: I suggest that you used every possible persuasion to get her to make this statement. Did you not question her for a solid hour on end. Witness said that he questioned the girl for a time and then wrote out the statement. It was a slow job as there were no facilities' for writing other than the top of a tank. There was a high wind blowing at the time. Counsel: You sweat you didn’t say that if she didn’t make a statement vou would take her to the police station ?

Witness: The only thing I said about the police station was that we usually asked people to accompany us there to make a statement.

Constable Carroll stated in evidence that he did not remember having heard Detective Lambert say anything about the police station. Counsel: Was it suggested to the girl that if she made a statement it would be the end of it by reason of the fact that it was a family matter?

Witness: So far as I can remember Detective Lambert said, “It may be the end of it.” Counsel: I, want you to remember, I take it you were there as a witness. The Magistrate: They usually hunt in couples, you know. Counsel: I am not familiar with their methods. ’ Chief-Detective Cummings: It is essential that they do in view of serious allegations. Replying to Mr. Cummings, Constable Carroll said it took Detective Lambert twenty minutes to write out the statement. Mr. Hunt: First of all she point blank denied keeping the money ? Constable Carroll: Yes, Sir. First she said she had given the letter to the mail carrier Then she said she never posted the letter. She said she had kept the money and spent it foolishly, being unable to show'anything for it. Mr. Hunt: Did she break down ? Witness: Yes and she cried slightly. Mr. Johnstone said the girl was positive that she neither got the money nor that she made the statement of her own free will. She signed the statement because she thought she would be taken away to the police station if she refused. She also thought that if she signed it she would hear no more of the matter. , o Accused’s Evidence, Accused, who said she was 20 years of age and a probationer nurse, deposed that it had been her custom when living at home to take the household letters, together with those of the neighbours’, and post them in the mail car when it came round. The house was situated in an area served by a rural delivery car. She had posted the letter containing the money in the box on the car. The money for registration had been given to her, but she forgot to register it, us she was in a hurry. When Detective Lambert called be asked where we could go (or a quiet talk, and 1 took him up to the roof garden,” said accused. "When he asked me if I had kept the letter I said 'No, I posted it, 1 and he said ‘Come on, now, that’s no good. Y'ou’ve go to make some sort of a statement.’ He told me it was up to me to clear the matter up, otherwise lit would have to take me to the police station, and I would have to make my statement there. He also said, ‘lt’s not likely that your father would take this to court, is it ?’ and he started to tell me other instances where everything had been all right.” The Magistrate: You wrote to your father straight away and told him you had admitted it? Accused: Yes, I told him the truth. Chief Detective Cummings: “I told my father the truth”—that is what you say ? Accused: The truth—that I am innocent. The Magistrate: Then all this (snowing the statement) is Mr. Lambert’s invention, is it? Mr. Johnstone suggested that the circumstances under which the statement had been obtained cast considerable doubt on its genuineness Mr Hunt: Oh, I don’t know. It is difficult to conceive that she would put her hand to this statement if she were innocent. There is no suggestion of a threat that she was going to be arrested. I’m loth to think that an experienced detective would be n party to a bluff to get the girl convicted. Either this girl took the money or the postal woman or someone else. She

says she cashed the £5 note. I’m going to convict her and suppress her name, and order her to come up for sentence when called upon. Mr. Hunt expressed surprise when the chief detective made an application for a restitution order. “Well, sir, the father is claiming on the P. find T. Department for the money,” the chief detective said.

“Oh, is he,” replied the Magistrate. “Then I’ll make a formal order for restitution.”