4
divisional officer, came to my quarters whilst I was alone. He proferred a $500 note saying, "**-ee, **-ce". He referred to a senior divisional officer's rank abbreviations. Zanding back the note, such was my naivete that I thought no more than that the man had cashed a cheque for the officer mentioned. T thought no more of the incident than that the fellow was showing me some thing he thought I had never seen before. (My $1,250 salary went into the bank direct). I thanked him for showing me the note and promtly forgot about it. But a week or so later exactly the same performance ensued. Before handing back the note on this second occasion I considered four courses of action. But first I thought this: it was the first offer of a bribe (and what else could it have been?) that I had had; my second thought was that the cash had been offered to me for nothing, for forbearance on my part against nobody, that it. was in fat a kind of retainer. Who, I asked myself, was the bearer the agent of? Why had he mentioned the rank abbreviations which he had? Was the money in fact sent by the senior officer he indicated or was somebody else in the station trying to cause a rift between me and my senior officers? Was this money not an offering from the Divisional Exchequer, proferred for the purposes of friendship so that I might be tempted to compromise myself? Whatever it was and whoever it was from, it was offered to me quite calmly in my quarters in my station, by aman employed by a senior divisional officer. This to my mind was evidence of organised police corruption. I was shocked, for if such money was being offered to me then was not being offered to other officers, also inspectors? I had not been prepared to believe that inspectorate were corrupt. Now I knew,
What could I do? Firstly, I could haveaccepted the money, compromised myself and never done my duty again. Acceptance would have oned many windows, but if I carried out aprivate enquiry I would of course never be able to speak without admitting I was guilty of corruption, such that people would not believe my motive and only think that I was frightened and trying to protect myself. Secondly, I could have arrested the agent. To bave done so would have been stupid for it would have been my word against his and I did not know if there anyone waiting outside my door to accuse me of demanding money. Thirdly, I might have re orted the matter informally to my senior divisional officers. But the money had been offered in one of their names quite calmly in their station; and my senior officers had, in those first
it
three months, given me no reason to trust them and ample reason not to trust them; and if I had informally reported the incident and ashed for advice should something similar occur again, the mattor might still have back-fired on me. Finally, as I did decide, I could reject the money and tạke the consequences.
The second happening that month was my being sounded out, A senior divisional officer SUFRAMEBOL sought me out late one night and sounded me out on my attitude to the Force. I made it quite plain that as far as duty went I was not compromising with anybody. The point is that he specifically sought me after I had rejected the offer of money,
out
The third happening was the content of a routine interview on my progress. Having been working hard for three months without criticism or advice from senior officers, I was quite surprised when I was subjected to a bombardment of criticisms on small points which were due entirely to inexperience and which had heen built up into a charge that I was not supervising my duties And why iney. When I pointed out that I han naked for advice which had not been forthcoming and asked for justification of his criticisms of me, the senior officer, who had bem bellicose from the beginning of the interview, became more excited. He was the officer in whose name I had been offered the money.
He could pot
ic
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