Letters to the Editor
| Published date | 01 May 1961 |
| Date | 01 May 1961 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0032258X6103400311 |
| Subject Matter | Letters to the Editor |
Letters
to
the
Editor
THE
POLICE
ADVOCATE
Clerks to the Justices
Sir,
What a pity it was
that
Mr. F. G. Hails, writing in the March-
April issue of
THE
POLICE
JOURNAL,
thought it appropriate to
conclude his (as always) interesting
and
instructive article by
repeating something from a letter which he had read in " a motor-
ing journal
".
My own experience of reading that sort ofletter in
that
sort of journal is that the stories contained in the letters are generally
not worth repeating anywhere
and
are frequently distortions of the
facts. In any case, if the one which has remained in Mr. Hails's
mind impressed him as being credible or (as he says) similar to some
of his personal experiences, I would have thought that asuitable
place for a repetition of the story would have been in an article
which dealt with the responsibilities of clerks to the justices. I read
the letter in the motoring journal; whilst the writer obviously had
a big chip on his shoulder Ifound it difficult to believe his version
of what
had
happened in a magistrates' court;
but
Icame to the con-
clusion
that
if such things
had
happened then the clerk to the justices
was the one to blame. None of the clerks Ihave met would have
allowed such happenings in their courts.
Yours faithfully,
R.
MCCARTNEY,
ChiefConstable
of
Herefordshire.
L. S. D.
Sir,
I have read with interest the article on
"The
Police
Advocate"
in your March-April issue. I congratulate the author on the accuracy
of his exposition of the law on the subject,
but
deplore the many
inferences he draws.
Iaccept the example he quotes at the end of his article as a faithful
reproduction of something he read in a motoring journal,
but
I
doubt if a court of law or any other tribunal would accept it as a
true portrayal of the facts of the particular case, and I am amazed
that atrained lawyer seems prepared to do so. A trained policeman
would not. In any case the example quoted is
not
so much an
indictment against the police advocate as against the (presumably)
trained lawyer paid to advise the bench, and indeed against the
administration of justice generally.
May-June 1961 203
To continue reading
Request your trial