§ MR. HUNTER (Aberdeen, N.)I beg to ask the Lord Advocate whether his attention has been called to a letter in The People's Journal with respect to a wrongful arrest in Aberdeen; whether it is consistent with usage or law in Scotland that a policeman who has not witnessed an assault may, without warrant or other process, on his own responsibility arrest persons who may be accused of having committed an assault; and whether, if the existing law be defective, he will take steps to prevent 1128 occurrences of the kind described in the letter above mentioned?
§ *THE LORD ADVOCATE (Mr. J. B. BALFOUR,&c.) Clackmannan,I have seen the letter in The People's Journal, the statements in which are borne out by the information which I have received. I think that the police displayed a want of judgment and discretion in arresting the men as they did on a charge of what seems not to have been a very serious breach of the peace, said to have been committed at another place on the unsupported testimony of one person. The more appropriate, and I believe the more usual, course in such circumstances would have been to ask the persons accused for their names and addresses; and if these were found to be accurate to allow them to go until evidence corroborative of the statement of the person making the charge had been obtained, when a warrant to apprehend them could have been applied for. It would not be easy to lay down hard-and-fast rules upon such a subject by legislation, and in general experience it is found that by the exercise of ordinary judgment and discretion, anything like hard or oppressive action can be avoided.
§ MR. HUNTERAre there not regulations laid down in reference to these matters?
§ MR. J. B. BALFOURYes, there are regulations which I have read; but I must confess that they seem to be in themselves contradictory.