The Argus at KellyGang 13/1/1883
The report of the Police Commission on the detective department has been presented to the Government, and a digest is published in another column. The document confirms the forecast which we gave of its contents some days ago. Its condemnation of the department is wholesale. Inspector Secretan is declared to be useless, and Detectives Duncan, Nixon, and O'Callaghan are recommended for dismissal. Detective Duncan has applied to the chief commissioner of police for a board to inquire into the allegations made against him by the commission, and the other officers implicated in the report also intend to adopt the same course.
THE POLICE COMMISSION
The Police Commission have forwarded their report on the detective branch of the police force to His Excellency the Governor.
The following are the principal portions of the document -
CONDITION OF THE DETECTIVE FORCE
In the opinion of your commissioners the detective force has been for some years deteriorating in prestige and efficiency and at the present time appears to be in its personnel so demoralised in its relations with the general force so antagonistic and in its system of working so iniquitous that it may be regarded as little less than a standing menace to the community. Inspector Secre tan the officer who has been in charge seemed powerless to control or properly direct the business of his department and to have become almost a passive instrument in the hands of a few of his subordinates. His office has fallen into a state of confusion. Public documents have been destroyed by him apparently to avoid the expo sure of personal scandals and internal disorganisation. Others have been surreptitiously removed or concealed, we believe to defeat the inquiry instituted by your commissioners. The clerks indirectly responsible for the safe custody of those papers when examined could afford no satisfactory explanation respecting their disappearance.
As regards the detectives generally it may be averred that, at least for some time past, the discovery of offenders bears no appreciable relation to the number of offences committed, and if at any period the capabilities of the department were to be judged by a higher standard or by a larger percentage of arrests, the result is probably attributable to the employment of criminals to entrap their associates under circumstances repugnant to every principle of justice, and in order that individual detectives might achieve a spurious reputation for ability, obtain the reward given for the recovery of stolen property, and lull the public into a sense of false security. A dispassionate consideration of the evidence elicited impresses your commissioners with the painful conviction that the detective department of Victoria has been little better than as described by one of the witnesses, a nursery of crime, that its existence as at present constituted, is inimical to the public interests and that it should be at once assimilated with and absorbed into the general police, and placed under the immediate supervision of the chief commissioner.
INSPECTOR SECRETAN
Your commissioners consider that the appointment of Mr Secretan as officer in charge of detectives was a serious error of judgment. Without having particularly distinguished himself as a subordinate, he appears to have been promoted by the special favour of his officer regardless of the claims of men who were his seniors, and his superior in ability and experience. He is described by several of the witnesses as having been one of the most useless men in the service, and of having had no experience excepting such as related to larcenies and the repredation of Chinese on the gold fields. Detective Eason emphatically condemned Mr Secretan's promotion when he was junior in service and class to nearly every man in the department. Mr Mainwaring was of a similar opinion, while Mr Otto Berliner contended that at the present time there was no detective force in existence in the colony. The documents in possession of your commissioners to some extent bear out those statements. Mr Secretan prior to his pro motion does not appear to have had the management of any very important cases, and the only prominent occasion on which, since his appointment as officer in charge of detectives, he took a share in the out- door duties of his profession was when accompanied by Detectives Duncan and Mahony, he escorted Martin Weiberg to the River Tarwin to discover certain supposed hidden treasure under circumstances and will consequences not only discreditable but highly suspicious. (Vide report of board on Weiberg's escape 10th April, 1879)
Mr Secretan's advancement provoked discontent and jealousy in the department - feelings which this officer’s manner and treatment or his men were not calculated to allay. Some of the charges urged against Mr Secretan in the course of the inquiry were of a personal nature but were found to be in the main either without foundation or based upon insufficient evidence. Instead, however, of dealing with the allegations made in a spirit becoming one in his position Mr Secretan descended to abuse and misrepresentation. Inspector Secretan has not been wholly condemned by those who had an opportunity of judging of his character. Mr C H Nicolson considered Mr Secretan as not only eligible for the position to which he had recommended him but that of all the members of the force at the time he was the only one suitable, not even excepting Detectives Hudson, Jennings and Eason, and Sub inspector Kennedy. In making this statement however Mr Nicolson seems pleading for his own protégé, inasmuch as was observed by Mr Mainwaring, "had there been no Nicolson, there would have been no Secretan." Mr H Moors chief clerk of the Police department stated that he had never found anything dishonourable on the part of Mr Secretan but that he did not seem to command the confidence of his men and that either his department or his intercourse militated against his efficiency. Captain Standish, ex Superintendent Ximenes, and other officers also referred in complimentary terms to Mr Secretan in his private and official capacities.
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