§ MR. HOWORTH (Salford, S.)I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether, in view of the opportunities for further corruption afforded thereby, he proposes to cancel or alter a prison rule under which a person who is charged with bribing a corporation official, who has been convicted, of embezzling public monies, is allowed to have access to the person so charging him without the intervention of a third person; and, whether, as a matter of fact, the Prison Board have forbidden Mr. Ellis Lever to have further access to the prisoner except in the presence of a third person?
§ MR. MATTHEWSWhen Mr. Rhodes and his client, Mr. Lever, saw the prisoner it was in the presence and hearing of a warder, permission having been obtained on the grounds I stated yesterday. The Prison Commissioners have since refused to allow a second interview of any kind, unless a statement made to them by the Town Clerk of Salford can be refuted—namely, that the prisoner could not possibly in any sense be a witness for the defendant, and that a further interview would be greatly opposed to the interests of justice. I am now considering with the Prison Commissioners what general practice shall be adopted in future with regard to visits by solicitors and others.