POLICE METHODS. A Trumpery Charge.

Free Lance, Volume III, Issue 110, 9 August 1902, Page 8

POLICE METHODS. A Trumpery Charge.

IF the case heard in the S.M. Court last week, in which a temporary messenger named Me Walters was criminally indicted with the offence of " stealing a chair of the value of 155., the property of the New Zealand Government," did nothing else it served to show how very eager the police are to take up any paltry case and chase it to a conviction, if possible, regardless of consequences to anyone else. According to the evidence adduced, this man, while engag ed as temporary messenger at the Parliamentary Building* last session removed a chair to the Government workshop- for much needed repairs. Proof was given that it had been discarded from a Ministerial sanctum as unfit for use ten years previously, and that since then it had done duty in the Parliamentary messengers' room, but that early last session it had to be discarded from there as rubbish. ♦ • » McWalters was told to take it to the carpenters' shop and did so, but Smith, the foreman, declined to undertake the renovation of so dilapidated a piece of furniture unless by requisition, without which he would not be justified in undertaking to reconstruct it. When McWalters later on went to get the chair back and found it on the rubbish heap, he asked the man in charge if he could have it. The man in charge replied in the affirmative and, moreover, assisted McWalters by allowing the Government carter to leave it at McWalters' residence, where the man himself put it into decent repair anp used it. It turned out afterwards that another chair was reported missing from the Government Buildings, likewise an old typewriter, and when asked what had become of the old dilapidated chair from the messengers' room McWalters candidly admitted having had it given him and having put it in order and to good use. » * # Then another messenger, Burgess by name, it was stated, communicated by telephone with Commissioner Tunbridge. Then followed the visit of dectectives, armed with a search warrant, to McWalters' house, his subsequent arrest and incarceration on a criminal charge and the farcical proceedings of last week in the S.M. Court. These, of course, ended in a dismissal of the information, but the attention of the S.M. was drawn to the extraordinary manner in which the police were moved to action, and he was eager to ascertain who was responsible for laying the charge. Mr. Haselden intimated that he did not intend

to convict, but he did seek to gain an idea how a charge of criminal theft could be laid by someone not in authority. " Who is this man Burgess who communicated by telephone with Commissioner Tunbndge," asked he, and again he enquired of Inspector Ellison as to how the information came to him. The Inspector could only remark that it had been sent down m the usual way from the head office. * • * In summing up, or rather, in peremptorily dismissing the information, Mr. Haselden said it was not his business to say who should or who should not have charge of Government property. Of course, it was not right that it should be allowed to be taken haphazard. But it seemed to him that before making a criminal charge of the kind before him the police ought to have had substantial authority, backed up by evidence, both of which were conspicuous by their absence in in "this case. ♦ * * Surely there should be some responsible officer who ought at least to be consulted before information is laid against anyone for stealing Government property which someone should have authority to control. Messenger Burgess may, for aught we know, be able to run the entire Government, but it is surely the duty of the custodian of Parliamentary Buildings to take action or inform the Colonial Secretary, and if necessary, inform the police, in the event of any of the furniture or effects in his charge going astray. In any case, Mr. McWalters came out of his painful ordeal with credit as the Hon. J. Carroll, City Missionary Moore, Captain Hennah and others spoke highly of his character for honesty and diligence.