MOTION FOR A SELECT COMMITTEE. (Hansard, 12 June 1868)

§ MR. LABOUCHERE
said, he rose to move for a Select Committee to inquire into the causes of the dismissal of Police Sergeant Stone from the Metropolitan Police Force. In the year 1864 Sergeant Stone was stationed at Ealing. He had been a police officer for twenty years, and had been at Ealing eight years. Owing to ill health, resulting from a hurt received in the discharge of his duty, he was temporarily incapacitated from the discharge of his duty, and a man named Monsell was employed for the time as his substitute. Subsequently to this Stone received a summons at twelve o'clock one night to appear the next day before the Chief Commissioner of Police in London to answer two charges preferred against him by Monsell. One was that he had clapped his hands in the presence of the police magistrates in a case at Brentford; and the other was that he had written an anonymous letter. With respect to the first, the magistrates themselves, on being appealed to, declared their belief in his innocence; so that the only point requiring consideration was that of the anonymous letter. Captain Labalmondiere, before whom Stone appeared, told him that he had written an anonymous letter, and on that ground suspended him from his office of sergeant, and shortly afterwards dismissed him altogether from the force. He was dismissed without having any opportunity given him of seeing the letter, or of disproving the charge by comparing it with his own handwriting; and for two years he remained under the stigma of having written that letter, no inquiry or investigation meanwhile being made into his case in order fairly to decide the truth of the accusation for which he was suffering. During those two years numerous letters upon the subject were written by Stone to the Home Office, public meetings were held at Ealing, and petitions were presented on his behalf from the clergy, churchwardens, and overseers; and at last, in October, 1866, he was informed that if he would go before Sir Richard Mayne with an "expert" he might see the anonymous letter, and compare it with his own handwriting. Stone 1479 complied with the request, and was accompanied by Mr. Netherclift, who examined the anonymous letter, and also some letters written by the sergeant, and gave Stone a certificate that there was no possibility of the communications having been written by the same person. One would have thought that the first thing Sir Richard Mayne would have done would he to express his regret, and then to have either re-instated him or given him the pension to which he was entitled. Stone made continuous applications to the authorities, and after a further interval of seven months he received from Lord Belmore, then Under Secretary for the Home Department, a letter, stating that a pension could not legally be granted to him; but that, having regard to his good conduct and twenty years' service, Mr. Secretary Hardy had awarded him a gratuity of £106 3s. 4d. (being at the rate of one month's pay for each year's service), but that this was not to be considered as affecting any decision in his case. Sergeant Stone replied, accepting the gratuity, but saying it was not to be held as affecting the statutory declaration of his innocence of the charge on which he was dismissed. At the end of fifteen years a police sergeant was entitled to a pension of £34 per annum, and the sum to which Sergeant Stone claimed to be entitled was based upon the capitalization of that £34 per year, and amounted to £340. The pension was not merely the result of his services; but was also partly the accumulation of something like 4d. or 6d. a week which was paid by the sergeants of the force to a general fund; so that the case was a very hard one. Mr. Stone was now broken in health, and injured by the charge brought against him, although he had disproved it. All that he now asked was to have the same amount of pension, or the capitalization of it, as he would have been entitled to had he not been dismissed the service, and lain under the stigma of having written the anonymous letter. He (Mr. Labouchere) hoped that justice would be done to the man.

§ MR. MONK
seconded the Amendment.

§ MR. GATHORNE HARDY
said, that the case of Police Sergeant Stone arose in the year 1864. Sergeant Stone was called upon to resign by the Chief Commissioner of Police on the 9th of September in that year. The Commissioner of Police, he might mention, had the absolute power of dismissing constables, and there is no appeal from his decision. But the case from the beginning seemed to have excited some interest in the neighbourhood where Stone lived; and from the time when it first arose—when the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Morpeth (Sir George Grey) was Home Secretary—up to the present time, there had been continual threats that the matter would be brought before Parliament. It was hoped that this would have been prevented by the arrangement which had been made, because he believed the man was amply satisfied so far as the pecuniary part of the matter was concerned. Stone was undoubtedly charged with having written an anonymous letter very prejudicial to one of his comrades. Stone had been invalided, and in the year 1864 was not able to discharge his duties. Another sergeant was sent to the district in his place. An anonymous letter having been sent in, containing grave charges against Stone's successor, it was deemed important to ascertain whether it had been written by any member of the force. By a comparison of that document with the undoubted writing of Stone in the police books, and by the aid of an expert from the Post Office, the conclusion was arrived at that the anonymous letter was written by Stone. Afterwards another expert, without knowing what had occurred before in the matter, came to the same conclusion; and therefore the Commissioner was confirmed in his opinion after the second investigation consequent upon the petition of Stone. The hon. Member said that Stone had not seen the letter. [Mr. LABOUCHERE: I said he was shown the letter, but not allowed to have it in his hand.] Stone had certainly seen the letter, and might have read it if so disposed. The most careful attention had been given to the case by the right hon. Gentleman (Sir George Grey) when Home Secretary, and that right hon. Gentleman did not think it called for his interference. As to the opinion of Mr. Netherclift with re- 1481 gard to the handwriting of the letter, experts, after all, were only guides to certain similarities in handwriting upon which other persons must judge; and it should be remembered that in one of the greatest cases ever tried—namely, that of Mrs. Ryves—Mr, Netherclift spoke to the authenticity of a mass of documents which were universally discredited, and in respect to which the jury came to the conclusion that he was entirely wrong, and the Judge agreed with them. Stone's case had also been pressed on his right hon. Friend the Member for the University of Cambridge (Mr. Walpole), when his right hon. Friend was at the head of the Home Office; and his right hon. Friend, after very carefully investigating it with Lord Belmore, thought there was n certain amount of doubt about it, and that the anonymous letter might possibly have been an imitation of Stone's handwriting. Under those circumstances, and considering that he had been twenty years in the force before his dismissal, his right hon. Friend thought a gratuity or a small pension, if that were legal, might be given to him for his past services and good conduct; but the law would not allow of a pension being awarded him. A pension could not be given unless a man was sixty years of age, and had been invalided for certain reasons; or if he were below sixty there should be a certificate from the Commissioner of Police that he was incapacitated for certain causes, and that the Commissioner of Police could approve in all respects of his conduct But the Commissioner of Police still retained the opinion he had at the first with reference to Stone's case. When he himself (Mr. Gathorne Hardy) succeeded to the Home Office his right hon. Friend had just made his decision, and he (Mr. Gathorne Hardy) had acted upon it, granting the man the sum of £106 3s. 4d., being at the rate of a month's pay for every year of his past service. Stone wrote expressing his gratitude and thanks for the gratuity granted him so "kindly, considerately, and justly," to use his own words, guarding himself at the same time by saying—"According to my understanding, my acceptance of the gratuity does not affect the statutory declaration which I made of my innocence. I tender my most humble and sincere thanks for the gratuity." He said, "The money will be a great boon to me;" but be added that as the gratuity was not enough to compensate him for the future, 1482 he hoped that if an opportunity offered of making a messenger of him that would be done. Stone was, however, too old for anything of that kind. In conclusion, in his (Mr. Gathorne Hardy's) opinion, ample justice had been done in the case. It was by no means so clear a case of hardship as the hon. Member for Middlesex (Mr. Labouchere) thought. The man had received enough in the shape of gratuity; and he (Mr. Gathorne Hardy) believed that if others had let him alone he would have been satisfied.

MR. GRANT DUFF
said, the hon. Member for Middlesex (Mr. Labouchere) deserved the thanks of his constituents for the trouble he had taken in that matter, which, though small in itself, had, it was satisfactory to find, received great care and attention from the Home Office. It would be still more gratifying if the right hon. Gentleman opposite could say that he contemplated giving Stone some slight additional gratuity or a small situation. Unless the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the University of Cambridge (Mr. Walpole) intervened in the debate and told the House that there was a stronger case in favour of this man than the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the University of Oxford thought, he would recommend his hon. Friend not to press his Motion to a division.

§ MR. WALPOLE
said, he could confirm what had fallen from his right hon. hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Home Department. Greater pains could not be taken than had been bestowed by the right hon. Gentleman opposite (Sir George Grey) in examining all the particulars bearing on that case. He (Mr. Walpole) had examined the whole of the Papers in the case, and his opinion was that under the circumstances ample justice had been done to Stone by the pecuniary acknowledgment which he had received. The only thing that had weighed with him was that Stone had never had an opportunity of seeing the anonymous letter and comparing it with his own handwriting. No more could legally have been given him, and it would, he thought, be very unadvisable to grant a Committee to inquire into a subject which had already been so fully investigated.

§ SIR GEORGE GREY
said, that he did not see that any advantage could accrue from further investigation of the subject. He remembered the circumstances of the case perfectly. The evidence was very 1483 strong as to Stone being the author of the letter, and he was glad to find that some doubt had been thrown on it. The course which had been taken by both the right hon. Gentlemen opposite in the case was not only just but generous towards Stone.

§ MR. LABOUCHERE
said, that after these expressions of opinion he would not press his Motion to a division.

§ MR. ALDERMAN LAWRENCE
said, he thought it was worthy of the consideration of the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether it was just that a member of the police force who had conducted himself well for twenty years, and earned the esteem of all persons in the neighbourhood where he performed his duty, should be discharged or called upon to resign upon a charge being made against him, without that charge being fully and fairly investigated?

§ MR. GATHORNE HARDY
said, that there was a double inquiry before the subject came under the notice of the Home Office.

§ COLONEL FRENCH
observed that there was power in the head of the Police to dismiss on his own opinion of a case.