§ MR. PICKERSGILL (Bethnal Green, S.W.)I wish to ask the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary a question of which I have given him private 458 notice, namely, whether he has any objection to state to the House upon what grounds he founded his advice to the Crown to grant and withhold the Royal clemency in the case of George Davies and Richard Davies in connection with the recent murder at Crewe?
§ MR. MATTHEWSThe case of the Davies brothers at Crewe was one of a cruel and deliberate murder, in which the jury most properly based their recommendation to mercy on the ground of youth alone. It was impossible in such a case to give effect to the recommendation in the case of Richard Davies, who was all but 19—an age approaching manhood, in which responsibility for deliberate crime has been enforced, and, in my opinion, should be enforced. George Davies was only 16 years and eightmonths. No person so young has been left for execution for very many years. Although his guilt was undoubted, the conclusion at which I arrived, after very careful study of all the evidence, was that he acted under the influence of his elder brother, that Richard initiated the plot, and took the principal part in its execution. Under these circumstances, I thought it was possible to give effect to the recommendation of the jury in the case of George. I am permitted to say that I had the advice and concurrence of the learned Judge in extending mercy to George and to him alone.
§ MR. T. P. O'CONNOR (Liverpool, Scotland)May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he has had any evidence in addition to that given to the jury at the trial in favour of the opinion he has expressed, that it was the elder brother who plotted and took the main part in the execution of the murder; whether the jury who tried the case did not publicly declare after the trial that the recommendation to mercy was intended to apply equally to both prisoners; and whether he knows of any instance in which such a recommendation has been disregarded?
§ MR. MATTHEWSI have already exceeded somewhat the precedent in answering any question at all upon this subject. I must entirely decline to enter on any discussion of the evidence or of the facts, the whole of which were under my most careful consideration. It is within the knowledge of the hon. Gen- 459 tleman that the whole of the facts appeared in the newspapers, and I must refer him to them.