§ MR. SWIFT MACNEILL (Donegal, S.)I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether his attention has been directed to the remarks of Lord Coleridge, as Commissioner of Assize, to the grand jury at the Normanton assizes, in which he referred to the fact that several cases of robbery with violence were to come before them, and laid stress on the inflicting of the sentences of corporal punishment, mostly passed in cases of this nature to check such crimes; and whether, having regard to the observations of the learned judge and to the fact that the great majority of judges never impose the punishment of the lash, which is a matter of judicial discretion, he will undertake, in each case in which a sentence of flogging is imposed, to consider the facts with a view, if possible, to the remission of the sentence.
§ MR. HERBERT SAMUELThe Secretary of State doubts whether the hon. Member has placed the right interpretation on the observations which Lord Coleridge is reported to have made in charging the Grand Jury, at Swansea, on the 17th of this month; but, however that may be, he may remind the hon. Member that, by the Criminal Appeal Act, 1907, their tribunal has been established to which prisoners sentenced to corporal punishment can apply for leave to appeal against their sentences or their convictions; and that no sentence of corporal punishment can be carried out until after the expiration of the period within which such an application can be made. I must decline to give the undertaking asked for by the hon. Member.
§ MR. H. C. LEAHave there been any successful appeals against sentences for flogging?
§ MR. HERBERT SAMUELasked for notice.