Costs Against the Police.
Page 1
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
The police authorities of this country usually writhe if they are nmleted in costs. That unpleasant experience, however, is no excuse for the spirit of vindictiveness which some competent persons assert to be the result. We should be sorry to believe certain reports which have reached us in connection with unsuccessful prosecutions by the Loudon police, but the allegations are of a nature which certainly will insure our watching for developments which are alleged to be inevitable. It should count with the police, and we believe it does, that a magistrate has discharged a driver, or other licensed individual, and they lis,ve no right to regard that situation as either a reflection upon their action or a grievance to be avenged by overt behaviour at a later date. As Mr. Plowden very cogently remarked, when he dismissed a charge of furiously driving a. motorcab, at the Marylebone Court, with £2 2s. costs against the Commissioner of Pollee: " His motives, of course, are beyond question, and he takes proceedings in the public interest on evidence placed before him. I cannot agree that the Commissioner should not run the same risk as any other person who brings an action and loses it, and I do not see why the Commissioner should bear a charmed existence in this matter." We are glad to note this badly-needed and most-proper lead by Mr. Plowden.