The Police Inquiries
THE conduct of the police in connexion with offences in the London parks and streets has been seriously questioned so repeatedly in the last two or three years that public confidence is undoubtedly shaken. That in itself is a serious matter, and it would be hardly less serious if every accusation or suspicion against the police were quite unfounded. For the full preservation of personal liberty depends upon a perfect working alliance between the police and the public.
The police in this country have been regarded, to an extent which we flatter ourselves is almost unknown in other countries, as the champions of every claim made by the citizen to be left alone so long as he does not transgress the line which divides the illegal from the legal. If, as is now widely believed, there are reasons to think that the police have been gradually transferring the weight of their influence from the side of the citizen asserting his rights- to the side of the law as the ready prosecutor of the citizen who gives any sort of trouble, though' he may not actually transgress the law, then the time is ripe for an inquiry.
There was nothing more significant in the outburst of indignation in the House of Commons on Thursday, May 17th, than the feeling that a British tradition was being broken, and that the police had been resorting to methods worthy of the Star Chamber or of experts in the Third Degree. Mr. Johnston's description of how Miss Savidge was taken to Scotland Yard, was questioned for nearly five hours by police officers, was subjected to flagrant insinuations, was warned to say nothing about her visit to Scotland Yard, and was finally sent home in a state of collapse, was all the more telling because of the simplicity and -moderation with which Mr. Johnston spoke. It is necessary, however, to remember at this point that all these accusations against the' police may turn out to be quite untrue. That is what has to be ascertained. The police have a claim to justice as strong as that of anybody else, and it is known that the police officers against whom the charges are made are men of great experience and excellent record. What remains undisputed, however, is that Miss Savidge was hauled to Scotland Yard, and was interrogated as a possible witness for the police who are under the Home Secretary's threat of a trial for perjury. There is not a word in the Common Law which would justify the compelling of a witness to go to Scotland Yard and be examined. A witness can be compelled to attend at a Law Court and nowhere else. The method actually adopted was outside the law and it is necessary to find out how it can have been sanctioned by superior officials. • In our judgment the. Home Secretary or the Director of Public Prosecutions made a mistake in contemplating a prosecution for perjury against the police who gave evidence in the recent Hyde Park case of Sir Leo Money and Miss Savidge. Such a prosecution would, in effect, reopen the whole Money case. That would be unfair to Sir Leo Money and Miss Savidge, who were acquitted after a hearing of the charge against them.
There are two proper subjects of inquiry and two only. The first, which is by far the more pressing and which was the exclusive cause of the outburst of feeling in the House of Commons last week, is the unwarrantable questioning of Miss Savidge at Scotland Yard. The second is a much larger one which must necessarily occupy more time—the general conduct of the police in regard to public offences. The field of the latter inquiry is, of course, being surveyed in some degree by the Committee presided over by Mr. Macmillan, but we have no doubt that an independent inquiry is needed. Confidence must be restored.
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