THE POLICE AND THEIR PRISONERS.

Evening Star, Volume IX, Issue 2652, 17 August 1871, Page 3

THE POLICE AND THEIR PRISONERS.

The following important decision relative to arrests by police-constables has attracted a "ood deal of attention. The judgment has been officially copied into the Police Gazette of Victoria, and the Chief Commissioner of Police in that Colony calls the attention of the members of the force to the undermentioned remarks made by Justice BJapklnuai, in the Court of Queer.’-s Bench, in the case of Allan v. the London and South Western Railway Company, in reference to their duty where charges of felony are made to them. The case in question is as follows : The plaintiff purchased a ticket at a station on the line of the defendants, a railway company, and a dispute having arisen as to the change given him between the plaintiff and the clerk who gave him the ticket, the clerk called the policeman on duty at the railway, and gave the plaintiff into custody on the ground of attempting to steal money from the till. The charge being afterwards heard and dismissed as without foundation, an action was brought against the railway company for illegal arrest and false imprisonment. Blackburn, J. —“The general law of the Colony—putting aside statutory enactments —authorises any private person to give any person into custody for having committed a felony, provided a felony has been actually committed, aud he has reasonable ground for believing that the person he has given into custody committed the felony. The power to arrest ought not to bo exercised except ■yyhere tjiere is yeaspn to believe that the man given into custody would not be forthcoming to answer the charge, aud then the person who gives him into custody may justify himself as having acted for the public benefit, provided two things have happened —the first, that a felony was committed ; aud the second, that he has reasonable ground to bc.icve it had been committed by the person charged. That power is quite independent of whether the person exercising it be the one injured or not, that is, the person whose property is stolen. When a constable is the person who has taken another into custody without a warrant, the law is more favorable to him. It is bis duty to act

for the pnblic benefit, and therefore the law gives him protection if he has reasonable ground to believe that a felony has beep committed, and that the person he took into custody has committed it. As I have said before in the course of the argument, I think a constable, in exercising the power that is given to him, should always take into consideration whether the circumstances are such that there is ground for thinking, if he did not exercise the summary power, the manwould run away. The police have power to arrest provided they have reasonable ground to believe that a felony has been committed, and that the man given into custody is the felon ; and I do not deny that, as a general rule, where a respectable poison tells him so, the policeman should believe it. But they should exercise a discretion and see whether it is so or not; and I cannot help saying —what 1 did not say at the trial, because if I had said it, it would have been inviting the. plaintiff to bring an action, but now that the police are protected by a lapse of time, I will say—tint if an action had been brought against the superintendent of police at .Richmond for locking the plaintiff up for the night, the superintendent would have had no defence to the action, and must have paid damages. For not only was there no reasonable ground for suspecting the plaintiff of having committed a felony, but the least inquiry would have shown there was not; and as to the matter upon which the superintendent had discretion, there was not the slightest ground for supposing that if he let the man go out he would not have been forthcoming the next morning. If in the case 1 put—where a private person gives a man into custody, although acting, and probably acting for the public benefit—if he gives a man in chirgc for a felony, and in doing so makes a mistake, he makes himself liable, and if authorised by another person to do that act, then the other person is liable also.”