SLANDER ON POLICE

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 1, Issue 99, 17 December 1931, Page 2

SLANDER ON POLICE

MAN'S . ACCUSATION . ALLEGED INSPECTOR COMMITTED PERJURY STATEMENTS AT MEETING WELLINGTON. Dealing in the Police Court with Philip Gordon Brazier, who was in effect eonvicted of publicly and wrongly accusing Inspector John Lander, of the police force, of perjury, Mr. E. Page, S.M., said that such conduct was not to be tolerated. Brazier's statements were, the magistrate thought, a deliberate and malicious criminal slander. Brazier was senteneed to three months' imprisonment. The charge against him was that within the hearing of not less than 20 persons at a meeting he had said, when ref erring to Inspector Lander: "This big heavy-jowled individual stood up in the box and in giving evidence he swore that he carried no baton or weapon of any kind. Now, this is a deliberate lie," or words to that effect. Those words, according to the eharge, were likely to injure the reputation of Inspector Lander by exposing him to hatred or contempt or to injure him in his profession or trade. The charge was laiU under the "Law of Libel Amendment Act, 1910," section 11. . Parliament Hou.se Affray Counsel for the Crown said that in September an affray had occurred in the Parliament House grounds and a number of Communists had been charged subsequently in court. Inspector Lander gave evidence and in the course of it said that during the affray he had been unarmed. Brazier had been speaking the same evening in Allen Street in the presence of about 100 people and said that Inspector Lander, when giving evidence that day, had sworn to a deliberate lie in saying that he had not carried a baton at the affray. Detective Hall, Constable Smitl and another constable, gave evidence about Brazier's statements at the meeting and were sufcjected to erossexamination by defer.dant. Inspector Lander, Sub-Inspector Lopdell and Detective-Sergeant Tricklebank all gave evidence for the purpose of proving that Inspector Lander had not carried a baton or weapon in Parliamentary grounds. Some eonfusion had apparently been caused in defendant's mind when the men were brought before the court in September through a photograph in the possession of counsel for accused on that occasion. The photograph showed a police officer with a piece of wood in his hand. It was made clear yesterday that it was not a photograph of Inspector Lander. "Ridiculous," Brazier Says When the police evidence was finished, Brazier said that in his opinion the action aganst him was purely childish and ridiculous. The police had allowed three months to elapse before he appeared in court. He admitted that it was possible that he might have said, "It looks to me as if the inspector is telling a deliberate lie." But he denied that he had aetually used the words in the charge. He suggested to the court that the police officers might at the time have told him he was breaking the law and asked him to apologise or retract instead of waiting two months so that he would have no chance of finding witnesses to support him. The magistrate said that the charge was one of criminal defamation with the allegation that Brazier had said in the presence of perhaps a hundred people that the inspector had in a sworn statement told a deliberate lie. The magistrate said that it had been established that Brazier had made such a statement and it had been established further that that statement was false. An allegation of the crime of perjury, the magistrate continued, was a serious allegation to make of anyone, and it seemed to him that it was peculiarly so when it was made in respect of an officer of police of high rank; because the police were in charge of the conduct of criminal prosecutions and were constantly giv- ! ing evidence in eourts. An allegation j of the kind Brazier had made was, j he thought, calculated to undermine, j among some who were not conversant j with the facts, the confidence whieh j the people of this country had in the police force. Conduct of that kind could not be tolerated. "I think this was a deliberate and malicious criminal slander," the magistrate said. Sentence of three months' imprisonment was imposed.