§ MAJOR JAMESON (Clare, W.)I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that Police-sergeant Sheridan and Constable Mahony, of Mullough police station, have been dismissed the service for placing boycotting notices in the pocket of a man named Ryan and subsequently arresting him; and what steps do His Majesty's Government propose to take 1037 to safeguard the public against such practices on the part of the police.
§ MR. WYNDHAMSergeant Sheridan and Constable Mahony arrested on the 1st January, at Mullough, county Clare, a man named John Ryan, alleging that they had observed him in the act of posting a threatening notice, and that subsequently they had discovered two other threatening notices in his pockets. He was brought before the resident magistrate at Miltown Malbay on the following morning and remanded from time to time until the 26th January, when he was discharged from custody on the ground that the evidence would not have secured a conviction. No other course could properly have been taken when the evidence brought forward was, in the opinion of the Crown, untrustworthy. These police officers were not discharged for placing the notices in the man's pocket. They were discharged for supporting a charge by evidence of a character so unsatisfactory and conflicting as to render their further retention in the force undesirable in the interests of the public.