§ MR. CLAUDE HAY (Shoreditch Hoxton)To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether his 399 attention has been called to the recent case of a female prisoner having had her hair cut while awaiting trial; and whether he will state what steps he has taken in the matter.
(Answered by Mr. Secretary Akers-Douglas.) Careful inquiry was made into the case as soon as attention was called to it (which was done by the girl's father on February 20th), and I find that sanitary considerations rendered the cutting of the hair necessary. The woman was examined on reception by the deputy medical officer of the prison, who found her hair to be verminous, and gave written directions authorising it to be cut. Dr. Quinton, the governor, himself a medical man of great experience, is satisfied from the deputy medical officer's account and from the report of the hospital officer that no other measures would have eradicated the dirt and vermin without seriously injuring the scalp. In the interests of other prisoners it is necessary to take prompt and effectual precautions in cases of this kind, but a woman's hair is never cut except when there is no possibility of cleansing it in any other way, and then only on the certificate of a medical officer.