MR. O'BRIENasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether his attention has been called to the report, in The Carlisle Journal of the 28th October, of the evidence given, at the Cumberland Assizes, by John Douglass Semphill, Superintendent of Police and Deputy Chief Constable, upon the trial of a man named France, who was acquitted of complicity in the dynamite explosion at Cleator Moor; whether Mr. Sempill stated that, while France was under remand at Whitehaven, a constable from Longtown, named Tomer, whom the witness described as "an experienced detective officer," was put into the prisoner's cell, in plain clothes, for several hours; whether the witness stated that Tomer was shut up with the prisoner for the purpose of taking care of him, but that, "if the prisoner had made any statement, he should have inquired into it;" whether France states that the detective officer represented himself as a fellow-prisoner, pretended to be drunk, swore at the police, and tried to inveigle him into a statement respecting the charge against him; and, whether an inquiry will be held into the conduct of Tomer, and of the officers responsible for directing his visit, and admitting him to the cell of an untried prisoner?
§ SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT, in reply, said, that he had got a long Report from the Chief Constable, and another from the Superintendent, which were too long to read to the House; but the substance of them was that the Superintendent did not say that this officer was an experienced detective officer. He was nothing of the kind; he was a common constable, and he was not put into the cell at all with the view or object of obtaining evidence from the prisoner. The Superintendent stated 794 that he was applied to by Sergeant Graham, who was in charge of the lockup, that on account of the prisoner being in a low and depressed state of mind, which made it unsafe for him to be alone, another prisoner ought to be put beside him to prevent him doing harm to himself. It was found impracticable to place another prisoner with him at that time, and Constable Tomer, who was then at Whitehaven on duty, was placed in the cell for an hour and a-half. As regarded the two last Questions, there was also a statement from Constable Tomer, and he denied the allegations made in the Question. It was a mistake to suppose that Constable Tomer was brought specially from Longtown to Whitehaven for this purpose.