1947-08-08 — Page 10

THE HONGKONG TELEGRAPH, SATURDAY, AUGUST 9, 194

COURT

First of a new series of articles

by one of Britain's most famous detectives

SUPRE

YONG

SCOTLAND YARD AND

THE GUNMEN

By

It has all happened before and the gangster never wins

•

Ex-Superintendent

T. B. THOMPSON

Ex-Superintendent Thompson, one of the "Big Five," has just retired from Scotland Yard, where his painstaking methods were so successful that he was given a free hand on Thompson was the many important cases. man who caught "Flannelfoot," cleverest burg- lar of recent years.

Here, from his great experience of crima and crime waves, ex-Superintendent Thompson tells how Scotland Yard organises to fight the gunmen-a fight which the gunmen must lose.

COTLAND. YARD will gave that gunman no

The to shoot again. beat the gunmen. The

sight crooks of the latest crime wave will be cleaned up as swiftly and as efficiently as we broke their predecessors after the first World War.

The finest allics of the police in ridding Britain of the new gun gangster will be the pro-

for manslaughter. The late Mr Justice Darling, who tried the case at Old Bailey, com- mented that the jury would have been justified in finding him guilty of murder.

Yard's policy

THE judge was backing the policy.

we have always advocated at Scotland Yard, that the severest possible sentence should be given. to the gunman and the killer,

to

Ex-Superintendent

T. B. Thompson.

But when I burst into the room I completely forgot that my "gun- man" was behind me."

J

The knowledge that even their criminal companions are ready denounce them and that when they His torch alihouetted me and I are, cought the sentences will be made a perfect target for the man arrest-while my long and may even includd the cat I had come to

is the surest meang of preventing body screened the sergeant's are of the spread of arme cangsterism.

on a

fircl

I have had to deal with gunmen 1 there had been any shooting

number of occasions, but should have caught it-from both tollen, in the excitement of making sites, chance the kill I have forgotten,the risks

of being shot,

In the small hours of morning he was awakened the light being switched on his bedroom.

the by in,

Once I had to pick up a suspect

ham Court-rund.

na lodging-house off the Totten

When I got there with another C.I.D. man the lodging-house keeper As he sat up he faced four told me: "He is asleep in the top

ful. He's got a gun." loaded revolvers. There was room. But you had better be care-

each armed detective at an corner of the bed.

fessional criminala. For once That man whom the under- policeman and burglar, detec- world gave up got seven years tive and thief will work to gether.

Commis-

Sir Harold Scott. sioner of Metropolitan Police, showed acute appreciation of the psychology of professional criminals when 'he appealed to the

denounce underworld to

the gunmen

They will. Because the criminal,. who is average normally a fellow with decent.. instincts but is too lazy to work, hates gunplay and will do anything to prevent his battle of wits with the police shooting from becoming 4 match.

*

Fired as he ran

1 CAN recall an almost exact parallel with the Charlotte- street shooting recently. It happened in 1921 when I was a C.I.D. officer attached to "B" Division.

Two of my colleagues recog- niked a pair of wanted men in a Fulham public house.

Thoy followed them into the street and grabbed them by the arm. One mun wrested himself free and ran.

As he ran he drew a revol- Detective-Sergeant Sid- ver.

ney Woods gave chase, shout- ing

"Stop him." In Park- walk, Chelsea, Edwin Payne, a

who 64-year-old porter,

was

talking to a woman, flung up

an arm to bar the way.

a

I sent round to the nearest police station for an armed man, and few minutes later a sergeant with a revolver came to reinforce me."

"Now I don't know how many to figure on for dinner

tonight!"

Fortunately the suspect was too sleepy to take action. He came very quietly, and I removed the gun from under his pillow at

laure.

my

First precaution WHEN we know that a man we YY are after is carrying a gun our first precaution is to make sure that he does not use it on us any unfortunate passer-by.

Or

We had a real strong-arm squad of senior police officers on duty the night I traced RonaldTrue and helped to arrest him.

that called

It was on March 8, 1922, Ronald murdered a woman Olive Yates in a flat at Kensing

ton.

LIBRARY

KONG

We opened the door of the box quietly and the five of us moved

in.

I grabbed True by the elbows co that he could not move his orms. Inspector Burton seized his hands. Superintendent Hawkins plunged ono hand into the right pocket of True's incket and pulled out П Webley automatic, loaded and cock- cd.

Trute was a tall, powerful man, but ho did not struggle.

Ha know that he had had it. In fact, it was some minutes

before

to

he could switch his mind from tho fantasin of performing parrots the reality of a box full of policemen.

entlemen

WITHIN a few years of its founding in 1887 the Manu- facturers Life expanded into foreign fields. The repre- truly sentatives who' pioneered this development word large

"Gentlemen Adventurors"-thoir search for new avenues of business was an advance into the unknown.

The True trial was one of the sensations of the century. He was found guilty of murder and on- tenced to death. He.

3vas aller- wards declared to be insane

In lle is still reprieved. was Broadmoor. Criminal Lunatic. Asy- lum...

and

From the nation's viewpoint this expansion was an important step in the development of export trado which at that time was confined to natural products. The sale of Life Insurance abroad is an export of services paid for by the premium payments of foreign policyholders.

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Hard to catch

DONALD TRUE, was no ordinary I criminal; neither is the gunman

an amateur of today, Ha is crime.

That, of course, makes it harder for the police to catch him for until he is caught he has no record at the Yard. In a number of recent coses the gunmen have left perfect sets of finger-prints, but they have been of no use to the pollee, for they do not match any on the Yard file.

They are docketed as "unknown" and will come in useful one day. If the killer makes the slightest mis- take and is arrested on any charge they will hang him.

Meanwhile, all the police have to sketchy descriptions work on arc given by excited witneases, and often these are so contradictory in detail that it is Impossible to build up a reliable picture.

The task of tracking down these is therefore to crimo newcomers slow, but it is none the less effective. "Patient They used to call me Tommy" because I never gave up on a case, however long it took to build it up from the tiniest scraps of

In kas than twenty-four hours 1 evidence, but I do not suppose that

was on his trail.

I had discovered that True em- ployed a hired car driven by a man dog whose pet was a blue chow

The blus chow was my cluc.

The dog found the driver with perched up beside him on the front

seal. He admitted that he

I am any more pallent than my col- leagues.

The long comb-out begins with the interrogation of hundreds known criminals.

ot

When they know that an

drove amateur" is involved, and that he

the

for True, told me that he was pick- uses a gun, they are willing to talk. ing him up that evening at Hammersmith Palace of Varieties, and-most important-warned that True was armed.

He did not know that I True for murder.

I was then

Usually they have little evidence' me of value at first, but the police put

them on their guard.

wanted

I sergeant, and hurried back to report to my sentor

officers.

and

Superintendent Hawkins -Chief Inspector Bill Brown of the Yard, Divisional Detective Inspec- lors Burton and Smith of B. Divi- sion all piled into a car with and we raced down to Hammer- smith.

Grabbed in box

me

of True's car was THE driver

already at the theatre, waiting. for him. We took him inside and he pointed out True, who was eli- ting in a box.

The arrest was a fantastic scene. On the stage was a performing par rot act, and True was leaning for- ward. laughing..

WANTED: HARBOUR TUNNEL

ап

The gunman swung round fired. Payne, hit from

INCE referring to the ad-

д

range of four yards, dropped

visability of building

cross-harbour tunnel, I

dead. Sergeant Woods closed | have been given to understand

in and the man fred again. that nians for such a project

by “CANDIDUS”

Sooner or later the gunman on the run moves into Soha or one of the other haunts of the "regulars." Then

e private tip comes in.

Crook informers

E-professional crook, who:

THE would sooner suffer torture than give away one of his own brother- hood, will gladly inform against the killer.

Professional burglars, house- breakers, and the usual, run of cri .minal operators, larga and small,

rarely carry a gun. -

For one thing they are frightened of the heavy penalties that will be added to their sentence if they are caught; for the "pro" is a realist, and he weighs up the chances

of the sentence for cach job ho does.

More than one crook' has said to me, when I have arrested him: "O course, I've got to do my bird." In other words, he looked on his bird- the or term of imprisonment-as premium he paid for earning his living..

But the gunman has not the sense the habitual criminal's to acquire philosophy,

the one-and-a-half million mark. It is probably nearer two millions to- day.

Again it must be remembered

He wants things all his own way, that, Kowloon is the railway tor- minus, and it is not too much to and when he carries a gun he even- hope that one of these days, when tually puts himself into the position Then, racing across the road- actually existed before the war in operation will also remember Russia, comes into line and displays of being forced to use i

hours. True, the reason and commonsense, that Calals way in the darkness, he swung If such plans do exist, surely it the rush

That is the beginning of the end. himself over a ten-foot hoard- is the time to dig them out and great crowds were catered for may be the terminus at the other The patient and systematic police

give the matter very careful with all possible efficiency and end.

method of elimination will eventual. ing and escaped.

companion, consideration.

expediency, but another system The gunman's.

Of course, the adoption of such a ly isolate him among the millions of who was found to be carrying

There are many reasons why had to be provided, and that suggestion would knock but the his fellow citizens as clearly as if a loaded revolver, had been. n tunnel would be advantageous, was the Sydney Bridge, which existing passenger and vehicle fer-ho were on a desert island.

rles monopolies, but such considers- Police and arms arrested, and we quickly got and, as far as I can see, none now carries hundreds of thou-ions must not be allowed to stand

work on him with a close against (always excepting. ob- sands daily by electric trains, in the way of progress. cross-examination.

structionists, for some reason trams and motor vehicles.

to

It

would probably

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Get your

Now that "Life With Father" his departed with Broadway's longest run championship safely Amounts totalling nearly to its credit at 8,215 perform- HAVE mentioned that on occa- sions where it is known the man $500,000 were paid recently on Once he realised that it was or other).. If we have any con- also carries thousands of tong

is armed and may be violent, police behalf of the Netherlands Indies ances, here is the picture of the a case of murder he was readyfidence in the future of the of merchandise, by rail and F.Is merely a matter of calcu-heers draw weapons from the star Government, by the Nether-long run attractions still on

lating the cost of a tynnel, and tion armourles.

lands Consul-General at Singa- Broadway on July 19: to talk. But, although he put Colony, it is not merely enough road.

deciding whether the revenue would us on to the killer's London to think along progressive lines,

Fortunately those accoglons are poré, Mr M. F. Vigeveno, to six} "Oklahomal", 1,844 performances Would not such a service de justify what inust obylously require haunts, we drew blank."

but to act. The island of of immeasurable benefit to a considerable outlay, the balance few, and it is strongly against the Chinese trading companies in

connection with claims which The Voice of the Turtle, 1,304, He had left London with a Hongkong always will be the Hongkong? A bridge is not sheets of the companies operating polley of the Yard to arm police.

Harveny," 1,160; "State of the ls, cxisting woman friend and had gone main commercial meeting place, practicable, but a tunnel

In spite of the recent minor crime arose out of the seizure of car? Unton," 701; "Born Yesterday," 810; into hiding at Watford.

He but Kowloon will continue to Trams could be extended

to provide und useful data. |

Such caguments would at least gewave, shooting matches are rare in goes by the N.E.L Government "Call Me Mister," 520. Another had cut and dyed his hair and grow, especially from the rest Kowloon and its

of this year. would consider The amounts paid represent a week will. place "Annté, completely altered his appear-dential point of view. It is all via the tunnel. Cargo could be tons of cargo carried by the water cd some criminals

necessary therefore carried easily without the inter- route. I doubt very much whether that they were bound to carry guns voluntary compensation in view of Gun" over ino 500 mark.

special circumstances prevailing at

"Life with Father" managed to He could not keep away from that the most up-to-date means ference caused by typhoons or wharves and floating stock would

high cost of maintaining piers, in self-defence.

the moment of the seizures. Each side would become trigger-

These circumstances were that the grind out 33 more performances than London, and in less than a should be provided for the inclement weather.

the maintenance of

"Tobacco Kdad, the record- happy, and the streets of London as trading companies concerned were uid Workers required in the week returned to a fint in movement of thousands of could reach their homes prob Maida Vale.'

people to and from their work ably an hour earlier than they matter to discover what is the pre dangerous as those of Chicago or the at the time not sufficiently aware holder which it displaced on June

Bowery

In the hey-day of the of the implications of the NE| cargo and

and vehicle

14. In order to surpass, "Life with But the underworld was quite apart from transients do at present and leave their ant passeng to place the revenue

American gangs."

import and export regulations. demand,

been Father," "Oklahoma!" would have to The amounts paid have ready to talk. They were not and others.

homes for work probably an from Buch against the building and

The gunman miny, appear to be

accepted by the trading companies continuo for another 1,372. per* going to hide a gunman from

hour later. This is surely de- maintaining of a tunnel winning today.

In full settlement of their claims sirable.

Many Interests would, of course, But have no doubt that within 12 and the Singapore. Chinese Chamber formances, or well over tiree more lose ravenue, and many shareholders months sur unarmed polics will have of Commerce has undertaken to years. Popular as the musical a In various concems lose lividends, wiped him out as smoothly as we urge all its members to obey the been and is, it seems unlikely that but I reiterate, that all these condid 20 years ago.

request of the Singapore Secretary that will happen, or that "Voice of cannot be said that the popula-iderations should not take prace-

of Economic Affairs to adhere: In tion is not large enough for such dence when the welfare

of the venture because there is little Colony and the comfort of ila in likelihood that it will drop far below habitants are at stnice.

ancc.

the law. Within a few hours

the more

of his return the word Was THERE was a time when passed to the police.

Sydney relied upon ferry We took no risks on that job. services to transport the busi- It was one of those special oc- nuss population to and from casions, raro in London, when the city. Those who remember wo carried arms. And we the many services which were

the

However,,

be

NEXT WEEK: West End Vice

the future to the Netherlands Indica the Turtle" or "Harvey" will linger import and export regulations when long enough to endanger the new

markUnited Press, trading with NEI,

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