§ MR. SWIFT MACNEILL (Donegal, S.)I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he is aware that in a case of one man, John Jones, sentenced to be flogged at the recent Cardiff Assizes, the victim of the outrage did not appear as a witness, and the accused was convicted on the evidence of one policeman who said he saw what took place at a distance, while in the case of two other men, Downey and Burns, who were also sentenced to be flogged at the Cardiff Assizes, the evidence was that they threatened to shoot the prosecutor with a revolver which was not loaded and was without a trigger, and that the prosecutor admitted that he had not been hurt; and whether, having regard to the fact that these sentences were pronounced before the Criminal Appeal Act came into operation, what explanation, if any, has he to give for his refusal to consider them.
§ MR. GLADSTONENo one named Jones was sentenced to be flogged at the recent Cardiff Assizes, and I do not know to what case the hon. Members refers in the first part of the question. Downey was not sentenced to be flogged in respect of the case described by the hon. Member. He was convicted, with Bews (there was no prisoner of the name of Burns) of robbery with actual personal violence in another case, and was sentenced to five years penal servitude and twelve strokes with the cat. A petition from him was considered by me, but I saw no grounds for interfering with the sentence. Bews, not Burns, received a sentence of ten months' hard labour, but was not sentenced to be flogged.
§ MR. SWIFT MACNEILLI beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether his refusal to consider the flogging sentences passed at the recent Assizes at Cardiff before the punishment was inflicted is at variance with the practice of the late Viscount Ridley when at the Home Office, who stated on the 28th March, 1900, that it was undesirable to inflict an irrevocable punishment, that he had cases before him when the sentence of flogging had been imposed in which it had been extremely difficult to decide whether the crime itself had been committed, and that in any of the cases, 501 when he had come to the decision that the sentence ought not to have been inflicted, it would have been a very painful reflection to him if the flogging had been inflicted; and whether he will explain the reason of the distinction between his practice in dealing with such cases and that of a former Home Secretary.
§ MR. GLADSTONEThere has been no alteration in the practice. Any case where an application is made to me by or on behalf of a prisoner sentenced to corporal punishment would be considered by me in the same way as it was considered by my predecessor—and if I found any ground for interference, I would advise remission of the sentence, or part of it. In the recent cases at Cardiff, I carefully considered the petitions addressed to me by three of the prisoners, but I could find no ground that would justify interference.
§ MR. SWIFT MACNEILLHaving regard to the nature of this punishment did not the right hon. Gentleman think it his duty to inquire whether flogging should be inflicted or not, especially in view of the fact that the majority of His Majesty's Judges never do inflict it?
§ MR. GLADSTONEI acted entirely as my predecessor did.
§ MR. SWIFT MACNEILLBut did not Sir Matthew White Ridley state that he considered every case before the flogging was inflicted and was very thankful that he had done so?
§ MR. GLADSTONEI understand that he only considered those cases in which appeals were made.