§ MR. PICKERSGILLI beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether his attention has been drawn to the fact that, at the Greenwich Police Court on the 20th February, on the hearing of a charge of larceny against one George Black, Detective Inspector Fox, of the Metropolitan Police, gave evidence of a conversation which he had had with the prisoner whilst in custody, where-upon the magistrate deprecated the practice of cross-examining prisoners, and 677 ordered that the said evidence should be struck out of the depositions; whether this is the some Inspector Fox who, on the 14th January at the Central Criminal Court, was censured by Mr. Justice Hawkins, for similar conduct in relation to a prisoner in his custody; and whether steps will be taken by the superior officer of Inspector Fox to warn him against the repetition of such conduct in the future?
§ SIR MATTHEW WHITE RIDLEYMy attention has been called to the circumstances alluded to in the Question. There was no cross-examination of the prisoner by the Inspector as the Question suggests, and the magistrate, with whom I have communicated, acquits the Inspector of any intention to act unfairly. I do not think it my duty to take any further steps in the matter. Inspector Fox is the officer about whose conduct in another case the hon. Member questioned me last month, and I expressed the opinion that his conduct had not, in my opinion, been deserving of censure.