§ MR. LEWISasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Whether Mr. M'Corkell was in court, at the trial at Sligo, ready to give evidence and confirm his previous formal denial of the allegations made by M'Daid and M'Cormack; and, whether the omission to call these two persons as witnesses arose from, want of confidence in their testimony entertained by the Crown officials?
§ MR. TREVELYANMr. M'Corkell was in Court, ready to give evidence on behalf of the prisoner. The Crown lawyers did not call the witnesses M'Daid and M'Cormack, because they did not consider their evidence reliable.
§ MR. HEALYasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, If the David Brown M'Corkell, who was identified and sworn to at a magisterial investigation in Derry, arising out of the town hall disturbances, by Patrick M'Daid and a man named M'Cormack, as being the person who was standing in the Corporation Hall window along with Thomas Doherty before and after he fired a shot from a revolver, which wounded a boy named Durnion, and for which Doherty has been sentenced to eighteen months hard labour, is the same David Brown M'Corkell who Holds the office of Crown Prosecutor for the county Tyrone; why the witnesses, M'Daid and M'Cormack, who were brought to Sligo by the Crown, were not produced at Doherty's trial; did their depositions incriminate the Crown Prosecutor for the county Tyrone; and, since the judge in his charge to the jury stated that "these standing close by were equally as guilty as the man who fired," do the Government intend to continue Mr. M'Corkell as a Crown Prosecutor?
§ MR. TREVELYAN, in reply, said, it was not the fact that the two witnesses swore that Mr. M'Corkoll was standing at the side door. Mr. M'Corkell denied the statement positively, and said he was not in the room when the firing took place until some time after it occurred. As he had just said, the two witnesses were not produced at Doherty's trial because the Crown counsel, in the 157 exercise of their discretion, after consultation, did not consider that they should be produced. They believed that the witnesses in their identification wore mistaken as to what they saw on the day of the meeting and their evidence was unreliable.
§ MR. HEALYI would ask whether Mr. M'Corkell at the time of the occurrence was not in the central hall, and whether he was not one of the parties who organized the demonstration against the Lord Mayor; and whether in view of the fact that Mr. M'Corkell prosecuted the Orangemen at the last Tyrone Assizes, he regards Mr. M'Corkell as a proper person to take part in the prosecution?
§ MR. TREVELYANsaid, that he would have fuller information with regard to the proceedings at Derry in the course of the week.
§ [No reply.]