§ LORD GEORGE HAMILTONasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, If there was any special reason for discharging from custody a prisoner named Crawshay Crawshay, who was convicted of fraudulently embezzling public money belonging to the Heston and Isleworth Local Board, at the Central Criminal Court, on 2nd April 1881, when he had only served half his sentence; and, whether he was aware that at the above trial there were seven other similar indictments against the prisoner that were not proceeded with, and that the Recorder, in passing sentence, said,
Had the Board proceeded with the other Bills, and not recommended you to mercy, it would have been my duty to have sentenced 1230 you to penal servitude. You will go to prison for two years with hard labour?
§ SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT,in reply, said, there were very special reasons for discharging this prisoner Early in the present year the Recorder reported to him that, under the circumstances of the case, the prisoner should not have been convicted; that he had nut had fair play, and that the testimony on which he was convicted was incorrect and misleading; and that, in his (the Recorder's) opinion, all further punishment ought to be remitted. In these circumstances, he had ordered the discharge of the prisoner.