§ MR TALBOT (Oxford University)To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether his attention has been drawn to the fact that the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland has made arrangements in Dublin whereby one of the divisional magistrates will dispose of cases in which juveniles are concerned in a room at the Police Courts, known as the Central Hall, and that the children, whilst waiting for their cases to come on, will be kept apart in a disused room, and in Cork, whereby the magistrates will hold a special Court for the hearing of children's cases on a particular day, or at a particular hour, when young persons and their parents would alone be present; and whether he will consider the possibility of making similar arrangements in London and other large cities
(Answered by Mr. Secretary Akers-Douglas.) The arrangements for the 164 hearing of charges by Courts of summary jurisdiction are not within my control, except in so far as the Metropolitan Police Courts are concerned, and at these Courts the separation of juvenile offenders from others has been the subject of much anxious thought and consideration by the magistrates and the police. Cases in which juveniles are charged are taken first on the list of cases for hearing; and in other ways, both before and after the hearing of a charge, every care is taken to keep children apart from adult offenders. Outside London the matter is one for the local authorities, but I have no reason to doubt that they are alive to its importance.