LONG POLICE SERVICE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 28 August 1940, Page 6

LONG POLICE SERVICE

EXPERT IN FINGERPRINTS. Many interesting experiences marked the police career of Sergeant R. J. Issel, of Ponsonby, who has retired after 38 years’ service. He was associated with the Royal tours of New Zealand of King George V., the Duke of Windsor and the present King. - As a detective, he specialised in the investigation of burglaries, earning an enviable record, and as a fingerprint expert he was prominent in the Gunn trial of 1920 for the murder of the Ponsonby postmaster, Mr A. E. Braithwaite.

Sergeant Issell was born at Westport, and as a youth was associated with the volunteer and permanent artillery forces, in Wellington and Auckland. He joined the police force in Wellington. He was selected as an acting-detective and went to Auckland in 1908. He later entered the fingerprint branch in Wellington, and when he returned to Auckland as a detec-tive-sergeant, he served on the wharves for a period during the last war.

While stationed at Newton, Sergeant Issell was responsible for halting a scries of burglaries that was harassing the business community. The offences broke out afresh while he was temporarily absent, and business people were so concerned that they protested against his transfer from the district. In one burglary case he brought to book persons who stole over £2OOO worth of goods from a city drapery firm, while he also arrested a woman shoplifter whose operations cost business firms about £lOOO. Another case of interest with which he wtis associated was that in which he was responsible for a gain of about £2OOO to the Treasury, as the result of a wholesale raid on Chinese, which revealed that many had entered New Zealand without, paying the poll-tax. Difficulty was found by the authorities in sheeting home responsibility for contravention of the regulations, until Sergeant Issell’s suggestion to check Chinese fingerprints was adopted.