A JUDGE’S REMARKS.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVIII, Issue 2752, 5 March 1910, Page 3

A JUDGE’S REMARKS.

OBJECTIONABLE POLICE METHODS.

For a second time during the present session of the Sunreme Court at Auckland (says the “Post”), Mr. Justice Edwards has had occasion to comment caustically on certain methods adopted by police representatives in their enforcement of what-they believed to be the law r . In the first case his Honor informed two officers, both detectives, that they had no right to badger for ever an hour a woman—believed to be dying—for the purpose of obtaining certain particulars from her. Such methods, added the Judge warmly, were inhuman, and could not be too strongly condemned. In this instance his Honor intimated that ho would make representations on the subject, with a view to police officers being instructed what or what not to do. In the second case the criticism was directed towards what the court considered to be an unnecessary arrest, a person being apprehended when a summons to appear would have been equally, sufficient. Such arrests were characterised as a gross abuse of the criminal law. Coming from such a source, these strictures are perturbing. British justice is a synonym all over the civilised world for all that is fair and above-board as between the Law and its victim, and anything that tends to discredit this reputation in the slightest degree should be promptly reviewed and reformed. "We agree with the learned Judge that no person who can he attached by a summons should undergo the preliminary humiliation of arrest. Once the literal hand of the Law is on a suspected’s shoulder, that individual is legally under arrest until his case is determined, and if, as his Honor suggested, those unnecessary arrests may he made with the object of ext?acting admissions from the accused, the matter calls for immediate and urgent inquiry bv the department, inasmuch as an unhealthy principle, whether due to nfficiousness, ignorance, or intent, is in danger of being encouraged And such a manciple is not compatible with the idea of our widely-ap-plauded justice.