A POLICEMAN’S WORD

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLVIII, Issue 2987, 16 January 1926, Page 2

A POLICEMAN’S WORD

NO BETTER THAN ANOTHER MAN’S. ’

Auckland, January 15. “It’s not a bit of good me put ting up a defence because you’ll take the policeman’s word before, mine,” John Jack Ellis, a young man, made this statement in the Magistrate’s Court this morning, when asked if he had any questions to put to a constable who had given evidence against him on a charge of using obscene language in a billiard saloon.-

“The sooner you get that notion out of your mind the better,” retorted Mr ,J. W. Poynton, S.M., in stern tones. “That’s not what you think, but what someone else has (old you. It is a wrong idea altogether. If 50 policemen came in this Court and gave evidence your word would he as good as theirs. That notion makes you defiant and disrespectful of the law. Be he policeman, priest, parson, or sailor, a man’s word is taken for what it is worth. You are liable for contempt of Court for that remark. We could lock you up for a week.” Ellis, who looked quite surprised, elected to give evidence and got into the box to state that he “let the word go in anger” during the course of a game in the billiard saloon. “He admits it. To his credit lie hasn’t told lies about it,” observed His Worship. Senior Sergeant Edwards said that the prosecution had been brought in the nature of a test case iu order to find whether or not a billiard saloon came within the definition of “a public place.”