4th January 1998

Setting an example to Scotland Yard

Recruiting.-It was again felt desirable to recruit from particular castes. There was some point in recruiting Sinhalese of the Goigama caste, Tamils of the Wellala caste and Mohammedans who were Malays. The Government Agents were notified of this requirement. De Wilton who was anxious to recruit Sikhs and had consulted the Government gave information of this to the Press before the Government could consider it.

The Colonial Secretary rebuked De Wilton as his action was, " an exhibition of want of common trust ". However, this idea was dropped as the Sikhs would be of little use not understanding the ' native ' languages. The Assistant Superintendents were required to pass examinations in Criminal Law, Police Administration and the two languages within three years. The Inspectors also had to pass examinations in Law, Police Administration and Drill. These examinations proved to be stumbling blocks to many and caused upsets in seniority.

Inspections- De Wilton carried out regular inspections. He found that this aspect of work had been greatly neglected. Matale and Hambantota had not been inspected for a long period. In 1904, he inspected the Headquarters Police Officers, Inspectors and 130 men who turned up for parade at Maradana.

These included Superintendent Tranchell, Assistant Superintendents Marshall, Armstrong, Godfrey and Attygalle, Inspectors Elstone, Pietersz, Bell, Dias, Jansen, Altendorf, Collette and Sergeant Major Crispeyn.

Drill- Drill was greatly neglected in many places. De Wilton wanted more drill to be done. He wanted drill at least once a week. The drill at Tangalle under Inspector F. M. Jansz was a "pure farce ".

Jansz admitted that he had done no drill for over 10 years. " After my recruit stage as Inspector, I was appointed Inspector of the Intelligence Department. The officers of this Department did not attend drill ". In 1905, Jansz was retired for inefficiency and one of the reasons given was that he had no knowledge of parade. Since the introduction of the new Drill Book, there was no need for employing Non-Commissioned Officers of the Army as Drill Instructors. De Wilton had Inspector Lockhart appointed as Drill Instructor. He was eventually succeeded by Inspector T. H. Doll. The old Snider Rifles were gradually replaced by Carbines.

Legal Problems.- Often legal issues were raised by Police Officers in their Weekly Diaries. Attygalle wanted statements to officers of and above Sergeants, after being cautioned, to be made admissible. Though statements made in this manner were admissible in England, the Indian Evidence Act excluded these on the assumption that the Indian Police were far more corrupt than the English Police.

The Indian Evidence Act prevailed in Ceylon and the question of granting such a request was ruled out. Daniel thought that the rule which allowed Sergeants to release persons on bail led to corruption and proposed a new set of Rules for keeping the Information Book. De Wilton did not agree with this and wrote, " These Rules for keeping the Information Books were drawn up by Superintendent Rudd (now retired), one of the most experienced Police Officers in the Force, who having risen from an Inspector knew all the shortcomings of the Subordinate officers and had any rule such as is proposed by Assistant Superintendent Daniel been feasible he would have made it ". He also added, " that bribery and corruption is rampant to the extent that Mr. Daniel presumes, I do not believe ".

The Detective Branch.- The Detective Branch which started with the laudable purpose of providing a better service and avoiding the faults of the former Branch, failed. Governor West Ridgeway noted what had happened thus: " I regret to report that experience has shown that this system has entirely failed owing to there being no officer at Headquarters of detective ability to supervise the proceedings of the Detectives who are deputed to trace out any serious crime….

"Accordingly the system introduced by me in 1896 has entirely broken down and I can with difficulty point out one serious crime which has been brought home to the offender by the means of this so-called Detective Staff". To remedy this it was decided to place an Assistant Superintendent who was well acquainted with the language and customs of the people in charge of the Detectives. The one man who had these qualifications was Attygalle. " He is indeed the only officer in the Force who has any detective ability ".

He was accordingly placed in charge of the Detectives with one Inspector, one Clerk, 2 Sergeants and 10 Constables to assist. This branch thence onward came to be referred to as the C.I.D. (Criminal Investigation Department).

The C.I.D. started functioning from 17th October, 1903. Very soon Attygalle discovered that it was not possible to attract the best material into this Branch. A detective could not be expected to operate on a subsistence allowance of 37 1/2 cents a day. In March, 1904, Inspector Wijesekera was transferred out of the C.I.D. to Ratnapura and Inspector Coore succeeded him. Inspector Ludovici, too, acted in this branch for sometime. Later, William Robinson who had Scotland Yard experience was taken in as an Inspector. The success of this branch was mediocre at the start.

The Colombo Division did not make use of their services. However, some good cases were worked by the C.I.D. Their success in forged currency cases was noteworthy. The C.I.D. did not command the prestige the former detectives had when Kotalawela was in charge. He tackled Ceylon criminals in a way which suited the country, added the Liverpool Courier which referred to Kotalawela as a ' veritable Lecoq''. It went further in asking Scotland Yard and Dale Street to take a lesson from him. " Truly Mr. Kotalawela exemplified a worthy ideal; Scotland Yard and Dale Street would do well to take a hint from him"

In March, 1904, the Court Inspector Altendorf who was in charge of the Identification Department was sent to Madras for three months to study the system of identification by thumb marks. De Wilton suggested to Government that Police Officers should have a code to communicate with each other on highly secret matters. The code word could be changed periodically.

Return to the Plus contents page

Read Letters to the Editor