MR. NEVILLE-GRENVILLEasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether it is correct that the cost of maintenance at Broadmoor Asylum of William Bisgrove, who was found guilty of murder in December 1868 and sentenced to death, is charged to the Wells Union; and, if so, under what Act of Parliament the charge is made?
MR. BRUCEsaid, the facts of the case were these. On the 16th of July, 1869, the visiting justices of the prison of the district sent to the Home Office certificates of the insanity of William Bisgrove, who had shortly before been convicted of murder and sentenced to death; and an application for a warrant for his removal to Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum was made, accompanied by a statement that it was 648 proposed to make an order for his maintenance on the Union in which his parish of settlement was situated. The warrant was issued, the convict removed to Broadmoor, and an order made for his maintenance, which he believed had been paid for ever since. The fact, however, had only been brought to his knowledge by the Question put by his hon. Friend the Member for Mid Somerset (Mr. Neville-Grenville), and on inquiry he found that if the prisoner, on his insanity being certified, had in the ordinary way been removed from the county prison to a convict prison, and thence to Broadmoor, the charge for his maintenance would have been an Imperial and not a local one. Strictly speaking, the charge was legally made on the local authorities; but it was not the usual charge, and he would take care that the Union should be relieved from it, and the charge borne in the ordinary manner in such cases.