APRIL FOOL’S DAY JOKE

Hokitika Guardian, 24 April 1931, Page 7

APRIL FOOL’S DAY JOKE

MAN SENT TO GAOL. IMPERSONATION OF POLICE OFFICER PALMERSTON N., April 22. A young man who posed as a constable and a detective made the excuse that it was an April Fools’ Day joke, but Air •I. L. Stout, S.AI., did not accept the excuse and sent him to gaol for two mouths with the comment: “He needs hard work—that’s what he wants.” Norman Julius Johansen, aged 21 years, was called upon to answer a charge of assuming without authority the designation of a constable m the New Zealand Police Force. The other count was that, at Palmerston North on March 20, he was deemed to be an idle disorderly person. f l he accused pleaded guilty to both charges .

Detective Russell declared that the accused had only recently been convicted for vagrancy and had aeon ordered to come up U'or sentence if called upon within six months. Johansen had subsequently refused relief work, while, with a companion, he had left his lodging-house without paying his board. He did not seem to want work.

“The first time accused represented himself to be a constable he told a man in a restaurant to ‘come inside’ with him and then produced his own probation papers, declaring that the description of the man he had accosted corresponded with that of a person suspected of breaking and entering,” said Detective Russell. The accused had boon warned by the police not to repeat these impersonations. Recently the police were summoned to settle a •family disturbance which occurred at midnight, hut, on the arrival of the constables ,tboy wore told that everything was then quite all right as a detective had been down, said Detective Russell. “Later, our inquiries disclosed that ‘the detective’ had been Johansen, and that he had gone through the house.”

It was further pointed out that the accused had gone to a lounge in the city representing himself to be a bakehouse inspector but the proprietor had refused him admittance, stating that there was no bakery on .the premises. At the present time the accused had opened an office as a debt collector. The Magistrate imposed a sentence of two months’ imprisonment with hard labour on the accused for representing himself to ho a constable and fined him Cl. in default a month with hard labour, on the charge of which lie was previously ordered to come lip fox' sentence.