Transcripts: Report on item 'New Police Neglect' in the Weekly Dispatch, 3rd Jan. 1835
This report comprises a single page:
L, or Lambeth Division, Jany 4th 1835.
Report
Gentleman,
With reference to the letter of Mr Tucker of the London Road, inserted in the Dispatch newspaper of yesterday’s date, I beg respectfully to state that on the evening of the robbery PC William Rowe, 40 L, was on duty in the London Road at about 6 o’clock when he was called into Mr Tucker’s shop and informed that a pane of glafs had been cut in the window. Mrs Tucker could not say whether anything had been stolen. Mr Tucker came home at about 12 o’clock and then told Sergeant Arnold L8, who was on the Section that instruments of the value of £10 had been stolen but that he did not attribute any blame to the police as the shop had been left without any person in care of it and as it could have been effected 7 or 8 minutes during the absence of the man on duty visiting other parts of his Beat. The PC then asked him if he would give a certificate to that effect and Mr Tucker said he would sign one if the PC would call with it. At the same time he mentioned that he had some suspicion of one of his men being the thief and he should make some further enquiries. It so happened however that another PC called with the certificate and Mr Tucker immediately recognized him as the constable who had some time previously locked him (Mr T) up at Tower Street Station upon a charge of creating a disturbance & afsaulting the police upon which occasion he was fined by the magistrate, and he then refused to sign any certificate but wrote on the back of it that he did attach blame to the police as it must have taken 8 minutes to effect the robbery, and as no policeman could be found when the same was discovered for some time. The PC (Rowe) declares that he had not been more than about 10 minutes absent from that part of the London Road where Mr Tucker’s shop is situate at any time during that evening.
It does not appear probable that the instruments (the accordions) were stolen in the manner described as they were of two [sic] large a size to be taken through the aperture in the pane of glass.
[?].D.C. Grinsell
Supt
PC giving directions to a mono-cyclist, Hammersmith, c.1935.