THE RURAL POLICE.

HC Deb 22 March 1842 vol 61 cc1078-84

Mr. T. Duncombe,

on rising to move, pursuant to notice, For copies of all letters and communications that have passed between the Secretary of State for the Home Department and the chief constable or any magistrate of the county of Norfolk or city of Norwich, from October last to the present time, relative to the conduct of the rural police of that county in the apprehension of a man of the name of Smith, on a charge of vagrancy, said, that he should state, as concisely as possible, the circumstances which gave rise to his motion, and the complaints he had to make, and he thought, that when the House had heard these they would agree with him, that conduct more cruel, more illegal, or more unconstitutional, could not be well imagined, and that if it were to be allowed, the liberty of the subject, which in this country we were in the habit of boasting of, might certainly exist in name, but not in reality, in those countries where the rural police was established. The unfortunate individual in question, without shoes or stockings, and, indeed, without a shirt on his back, was found wandering through the streets of Norwich with two pair of handcuffs on, and he was thereupon, naturally enough, taken before a magistrate by the police of the city, in order to account for his handcuffs. His account of himself was, that on the preceding day he had been taken up by one of the rural police as he was going along the road to a farmer's house, where he expected to sell some books or tracts which he had with him. The rural policeman asked him what he had to do with tracts, and also asked where his hawker's license was? He answered, "I have none." It was not very likely that a man should have a hawker's license who had no shoes to his feet, or a shirt to his back. On this the policeman immediately put the handcuffs upon him, and took him to a farmer's house, where he chained him by the wrists to the manger in the stable. It seemed that the policeman had a warrant to execute at Yarmouth, and having thus fastened the man in this way to the manger—which he believed was much more illegal than the act of selling tracts without a license—he went to the constable's wife (as he said), but who turned out to be the wife of a person who had formerly been constable, and told her to go to such a place, where she would find a man chained to the manger in the stable, and to feed him at two o'clock, for that he could not stay then, having to go to Yarmouth, whence he should not be back till night. Some time afterwards the farmer, as it was said, had gone into the stable and wrenched the ring to which the man was chained, and let him go. It appeared, that this was not done by the farmer, but by some other person; but, whoever it was, he would say that he would be justified in doing it. For if men are illegally chained and illegally detained in a private stable at the caprice of an individual, any man or any body of men would be justified in coming to their rescue, even if pulling down the stable was the consequence. The man was afterwards carried before Captain Money, a magistrate of the city of Norwich, who, on hearing the circumstances, reported them to Colonel Okes, the chief constable of the Norfolk rural police. The policeman next came and claimed his victim. He was carried before another magistrate. He was asked, "Were you selling tracts without a license?" "I was," said he. The magistrate then, on his own confession, sentenced him to a month's imprisonment. He admitted, that such selling was an act of vagrancy, and that the magistrate could not help doing as he did. The man, however, was committed for a month; but Captain Money, thinking that some inquiry into the policeman's conduct ought to take place, made a representation to Colonel Okes. Now, he did not mean to say anything against Colonel Okes, who was, as far as he had had an opportunity of knowing him, a benevolent and estimable individual; and during the time he was in the army, he was a most distinguished officer. Therefore, if Colonel Okes had committed any errors in this case, they were errors rather on the right side. It appeared, that his reason for not wishing to investigate the case was, that he had had some difference of opinion with another magistrate with reference to the propriety of appointing this very man. Smith (the superintendent) in the first instance. What did Colonel Okes do? Why, he referred the case in question to that very magistrate, the rev. Mr. Borton, of Blofield. Now Norfolk, it appeared, had the advantage of possessing a great abundance of what are called clerical justices. By a return presented during the last Session of Parliament, or the previous one, it appeared that there were no fewer than 102 of these clerical justices in the county of Norfolk. Well, Colonel Okes had a delicacy about investigating the conduct of this superintendent Smith, (whose name by coincidence was the same as that of the vagrant whom he had apprehended), because he had objected to his appointment when he was first proposed for the command of the rural police of the district. But the rev. Mr. Borton, of Blofield, it appeared, had a predilection for the man Smith, who was his protege. He had, in fact, almost insisted upon Colonel Okes appointing Smith to the police, and Colonel Okes having yielded, the man was appointed. Now, he would not venture to say what had passed in Colonel Okes's mind; but he really should think, that Colonel Okes must almost have felt, when the facts came before him, that the treatment of the individual, who had been manacled and chained to a manger, had been most cruel and illegal, occurring as it did before there had been any investigation into the merits of the case, and before the man had been taken before the magistrate for examination on the charge made against him. Colonel Okes then hands the man over to Smith's patron, the rev. Mr. Borton, of Blofield." The rev. Mr. Borton investigated the case, and in a letter sent by him to Captain Money, through Colonel Okes, he says:— I met Mr. Francis as he passed down the street of Norwich, and I asked him to give his assistance in investigating the case. And to what conclusion did the rector of Blofield, come? To what conclusion did the House suppose he came to, with respect to the case, the circumstances of which he had described? Why, he sanctioned the policeman's conduct—the conduct of the man who had committed an act which the right hon. Baronet, the Home Secretary, or any man at all acquainted with the law must at once know and admit to be illegal—the conduct of the man who had taken upon himself to handcuff a man, and chain him to a manger before there had been any investigation before a magistrate. But hear the rev. Mr. Borton's own words. On the whole it appears to me, and so it did to Mr, Francis, that there is no ground of complaint whatever against the superintendent. He should be very anxious to hear what the right hon. Baronet, the Secretary of State for the Home Department would say on the subject, whether he, too, would think that there was no blame attributable to the man who had acted in this manner. But what happened after this? It appeared, that another magistrate for the city of Norwich, (Mr. Palmer) a barrister, heard of the case, and to his surprise, found that the rev. Mr. Borton was not on the police committee of the county. If Colonel Okes, from the motives before stated did not like to investigate this particular case himself, then it ought to have gone before the police committee of the county, and not to the rev. Mr. Borton, who had nothing whatever to do with it. Upon this, Mr. Palmer wrote to the rev. Mr. Wilson, another of these clerical magistrates, to this effect:— I wish you would look into this case, as you are at the head of the police committee of the county. To this letter Mr. Wilson replied, that the complaint should be laid before the committee on the first day of meeting, but could not say when that would be. The affair then went on to the month of July, at which time occurred the summer assizes for the city of Norwich. Mr. Palmer, being a barrister, was counsel there for two other men, and in the evidence adduced on their trial, some evidence of an important nature was elicited. The man Smith was examined, and to what was then elicited, he begged to call the particular attention of the House, as showing what a dangerous power was possessed by these rural police. The policeman was examined as to conversations he had held with prisoners after their apprehension, and previous to their examination. He maintained, that any conversation that might be held between a policeman and a man handcuffed and chained, as it appears they were accustomed to be, ought not to be admitted as evidence in a court of justice. Mr. Palmer, however, in a letter which he wrote to the right hon. Home Secretary on the subject, said,— At the last Session, Smith was a witness in the cases of Dingle and another, and he stated, that it was the practice of the police to handcuff prisoners to mangers, and that on two or three occasions, they had left them so handcuffed for six or seven hours. Therefore, the case he now complained of was not a solitary case. There was also another case of another policeman. A prisoner, named Tite, had been apprehended for a burglary, and it appeared, that the policeman handcuffed the man to his bed post on the Saturday night, where he was obliged to keep him during the whole of Sunday; but on the Sunday night, it appeared, he took compassion upon him, so far as to allow him to get into the bed; but he then handcuffed him to his arm. This was the system pursued by the police of the county of Norfolk. Was this the system on which the rural police of the country was based? To continue his narrative of the facts, however, it appeared that Mr. Palmer, getting no satisfactory answer from the rural police committee of the county of Norfolk, wrote to the right hon. Baronet, the Secretary of State for the Home Department; and he here must observe, that he really thought Mr. Palmer deserved the thanks of the country at large for so doing. The right hon. Baronet, of course, acknowledged the receipt of his letter, and promised an investigation. He very properly fulfilled his promise by instituting an investigation. Not knowing, however, the whole of the circumstances of the case, as far as the magistrates on the spot were concerned, he referred the matter for investigation in such a manner that the chairman of the committee was no other person than the rev. Mr. Borton, the rector of Blofield, whom he had already mentioned as the patron of the policeman Smith. What report that committee made to the Home Secretary, he could not tell; but Mr. Palmer called upon him to state what his opinion of the case was. The right hon. Baronet's answer was, that he had made such a communication as he thought the case required, not saying whether he approved or disapproved of the conduct of the rural police of the county of Norfolk. He contended that that was not a proper answer for the right hon. Baronet the Home Secretary to give to Mr. Palmer, a magistrate, under such circumstances, when he had made a complaint upon public grounds, and one which did not rest upon the single instance of the superintendant Smith, but upon what was shown to be the general custom of the rural police of the county of Norfolk. He certainly thought, that the right hon. Baronet, under such circumstances, might have sent to Mr. Palmer a copy of the communications that had taken place upon the subject. Far, however, be it from him to assume that the right hon. Baronet approved the cruel conduct of these policemen; he felt, on the contrary, assured that when they did see the communications that had taken place they would find the right hon. Baronet recording his decided disapproval and censure of such proceedings as these on the part of the rural police—he was sure he should find the right hon. Baronet declaring that the rural police were a rural disgrace and a scandal to the county of Norfolk. He felt that he had already said sufficient to convince the House that the subject which he had now brought forward was one fit for inquiry, and that they ought, as the guardians of the public liberty—as the depositories of the subject's wrongs, and the protectors of his rights— to have the fullest information upon this case, and copies of the documents connected with it. He should, therefore conclude by moving for,— Copies of all letters and communications that have passed between the Secretary of State for the Home Department, the chief constable, or any magistrate of the county of Norfolk or city of Norwich, from October last to the present time, relative to the conduct of the rural police of that county in the apprehension of a man of the name of Smith on a charge of vagrancy.

Sir J. Graham

said, he did not know, whether any Member for the county of Norfolk would like to reply to the ex parte statement of the hon. Member for Fins-bury; but his own acquaintance with the facts was very recent, and principally confined to the communication he had received from Mr. Palmer. That statement had appeared to him to present facts requiring investigation and explanation; and, in the discharge of his duty, he did call upon the magistrates for some explanation. That explanation he received, and having received it, he thought it his duty to express an opinion upon the facts of the case. It was quite true, that, not having had any further acquaintance with Mr. Palmer in the matter, than from his being a magistrate and having sent home the information, he did not feel called upon to make known to that gentleman the result of the investigation into the case, but, so far from hesitating to produce the documents required, he thought it necessary, in justice to the parties, that they should be produced. Incidentally, the hon. Member for Finsbury had thought fit to reflect generally upon the character of a large portion of the magistracy of the county of Norfolk, but he appeared to have no other complaint against them, than that they were what he had called "clerical justices." The hon. Member had also expressed his own views of the manner in which the peace was to be kept and the laws maintained, by recommending the wholesale pulling down of buildings in which prisoners might happen to be confined. He must, however, at the same time, admit, that the hon. Gentleman had done full justice to the character of Colonel Okes, than whom a more humane and excellent officer was not to be found in the profession. He had, by his administration, conciliated the good will of the great body of the inhabitants. He must also say, that neither the magistrates of the county of Norfolk, nor the Rural Police Committee had anything to apprehend from the production of the documents, and he felt, that he should best consult the feelings of the magistrates, and also of Colonel Okes, by producing those documents; and when they were on the Table, it would be for the House to decide whether the several parties had discharged their duty.

Mr. Burrouglies,

being a representative of the district, where these circumstances had occurred, had thought it his duty to write to the right hon. the Home Secretary, and to express the desire of the magistrates of the county of Norfolk to have these papers produced. Until those papers were on the Table, he would altogether abstain from the discussion, except to observe, that they would be found, if not entirely to contradict, at all events materially to alter the complexion of the ex parte statement of the hon. Member for Finsbury.

Returns ordered.