BOGUS POLICE CONSTABLE

Evening Star, Issue 22445, 16 September 1936, Page 8

BOGUS POLICE CONSTABLE

FREE CAR RICE SECURED SEQUEL TO DRINKING BOUT “ APING MAN OF MEANS " The story of how two men received a free ride from Anderson’s Bay into the city in a postal van through one telling the driver he was a policeman escorting a prisoner to the Police Station was unfolded before Mr J. R. Bartholomew, S.M., in the Police Court this morning. The man was Raymond Bramwell Roberts (27), who admitted assuming the designation of a police constable on September 8. Roberts was represented by Mr C. J. L. White. Senior-sergeant Packer told the court that Roberts and a naval officer had been drinking together on the day of the offence. They were looking for a taxi to take them from Anderson’s Bay into the city at 10.40 ip.m. A mail car was standing at the corner of M'-Bride street, and Roberts, who said he was a constable and the naval officer an arrested man, asked the driver to take him and his supposed charge to the Police Station. Arriving there, the accused ran away, but was caught in Stuart street. The naval officer remained behind and offered to pay 2s to the van’s driver as payment. Roberts was arrested. “ This is the outcome of a man without means footing it with a man with means,” said Mr White. The circumstances of the case were somewhat peculiar. ■ Roberts was subject to fits, and when the offence was committed he was not in his sober senses. The state of his mind through the effects of the drink ho had taken during the day was reflected in his action of having the van driven right to the door of the Police Station. “He was trying to ape a man of means with the naval officer,” remarked Mr White, who applied for clemency, saying that Roberts had not been before the court before and his parents were eminently respectable. “ This matter has a somewhat tragic aspect, as, when Roberts did not return home on the night of the offence, his wife became ill and had to be taken to hospital in a serious condition,” continued Mr White. She was still there, and was still very ill. She did not know of the trouble her husband was in, and counsel urged that Robertses name be suppressed, even though it had not been when he was remanded on the charge a week ago. The Magistrate (drily): If his wife is very ill she won’t feel like reading the newspapers, Mr White. Counsel said Roberts was the father of one child, and had been unemployed for four or five months. He suggested that the case be adjourned for 12 months, and remarked that, if Roberts’s name were suppressed, he had a chance of receiving employment with a city firm. The effect of drink after fits resulted in his getting into trouble, and even on the morning after the offence, when he appeared in court, he was still suffering as the result of his drinking bout. ~ ,

“This is a type, of offence for which a sharp penalty would be the best deterrent,” said His Worship. “If the circumstances had been otherwise. I would so have dealt with him.” .i In view of the circumstances put before the court this waj a case where some oversight of the accused was_ necessary. The accused was convicted and ordered to come up for- sentence_ if called on in 12 months, on condition that he took out a prohibition order.