HC Deb 25 March 1903 vol 120 cc163-4
MR. O'DOHERTY (Donegal, N.)

To ask Mr. Attorney-General for Ireland whether his attention has been called to † See (4) Debates, cxv., 262. a series of prosecutions at the suit of the Crown against certain car drivers for riot at Strabane Railway Station on the 20th and 21st January last; and whether, seeing that these prosecutions arose out of the stopping of a public roadway by the Great Northern Railway Company at the station, and that previously proceedings had been instituted by the car privers against the porters of the Great Northern Railway Company, will he say at whose instance the Crown intervened.

(Answered by Mr. Atkinson.) According to the information received by the Crown through the police, the car drivers frequenting this railway station claimed a right to enter upon and traverse the premises of the company in order to reach the adjoining station of the Donegal Railway Company, and there solicit passengers arriving by train. The Great Northern Company deny the existence of any such right. On the occasions referred to, the car drivers and various other persons assembled at the station by arrangement, made a concerted, violent, and riotous attack upon the servants of the company, overwhelmed them, forced the doors of the station, took possession of the platform to the terror and alarm of the passengers, stabbed one of the railway servants, bit off part of the finger of another, threw a third from the platform on to the permanent way to his serious injury, and assaulted more or less seriously several others. Acting on this information, the Crown, of its own motion, and not at the instigation of anybody, instituted a prosecution for riot, as the assertion of civil rights, even if they existed, in such a manner was illegal and criminal, and could not be permitted with any regard to the preservation of the public peace. I am not aware that before the occurrence any proceedings such as are mentioned had been instituted.