MR. JOSEPH COWENasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, If it is correct that a man named John Hunt was three years ago, at the Liverpool Assizes, convicted of a garotte robery in that town and sentenced to ten years' penal servitude and twenty-five lashes with the cat, and that, after having been flogged and having undergone two years' and a half of penal servitude, he has been pardoned, because it has been shown that he was innocent of the offence he was convicted of and punished 379 for; and, if this statement be correct, what recompense the Government propose to make to Hunt for the injustice that has been done to him, the pain and indignity he has suffered, and the loss he has sustained?
MR. ASSHETON CROSS, in reply, said, he was afraid his hon. Friend was misinformed as to the facts of this case. The prisoner was tried at the Liverpool Assizes, for highway robbery, and was sentenced to penal servitude. A petition was sent to the Home Office on the subject. The defence set up was an alibi. The learned Judge who tried the case was strongly of opinion that that alibi could not be proved. Latter on another petition was sent to the Home Office to the same effect, and he referred that again to the learned Judge, who was still of the same opinion, and he (Mr. Cross) was bound to say, after the most careful consideration of the case, that he entirely agreed with the learned Judge. But after some time a final petition came on behalf of the man, and on looking at the whole circumstances of the case, at his previous good character, and at his youth—although he was then and now of the same opinion that an alibi could not be proved—he thought he might be justified in recommending this man to Her Majesty's clemency, so as to give him a fresh start in life.