BY HIS FACE.

Taranaki Central Press, Volume IV, Issue 394, 30 March 1937, Page 7

BY HIS FACE.

TELLING A “CROOK.” Girl Store Detective. With 300 captures to her credit, Miss Barbara O’Rorke, 20-year-old store detective, told a London reporter: “This game is easy. You can tell a crook by his face.” She had just left Maryjebone Police Court, Where her employer, a chain stores company, were prosecuting a woman for shoplifting.

Despite her pretty face and small figure, Miss O’Rorke is -already an ex pert in detection. She started the work at 17. Her life has been threatened. She has be. n knocked down dozens of times, had black eyes, and blows on the jaw, chased victims through traffic, fought thieves two at 1 time —and only one has ever escaped her. Police v-’ork is in her blood. Her father is a retired Gloucestershire policeman (30 years’ service), an uncle, a brother and a I cousin are all policemen. She was born in a police station at Winchcombe (Gloucestershire). She said: “I was a counter assistant when I first suggested ito the management that I would make a good detective. T saw so much shoplifting going on. They said, ‘You are a bit young, but we will try you.’ I caught a fev.’ thieves almost at once. They took me on permanently after a month.

“You see this?” she lasked. She pointed to a vague red mark on her cheek. “That was done by a boy. I chased him into the street, and got him.”

Later the reporter went to her shop, saw her walking round, 'a bag stuffed with tissue paper (“Lt’s light”) hanging on her arm. So she walks from opening to closing time —2700 miles in a year. She once worked it out with a pedometer. Detective work is not to be her career. She wears a diamond ring—and he is not a policeman.